Reviews tagging 'Self harm'

Suffer the Children by Craig DiLouie

9 reviews

lavendar_fr0g's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book wasn’t scary to me, but the multiple perspectives shown here are bloody interesting. 

It makes me ask myself- what would I do to provide for my family? What would I do for my children? Would I care for my vampire child?

I felt sympathetic to everyone in this one, even when their desperation turned deadly. 

The ending was…odd though, which is my major gripe. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Child death, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Suicide, Self harm, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, and Car accident

Minor: Cannibalism, Infidelity, Sexual content, and Vomit

rwsmith's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

it took about 100 pages for the book to pick up. and those first 100 pages were

really tough to get through - the author writes about a parent's grief very well and it was honestly triggering for me.

you do get the perspectives of many, many different kinds of people, which i enjoyed.
i dont usually read horror - stories such as those tend to affect me a bit more than id like. ive never liked scary movies and i assumed i wouldnt like scary books either. i was mostly right. if you're into horror though, this book is probably great lol!
the writing was good and i enjoyed the format of changing perspectives, although there are parts of the book as well as chapters, and the perspective changes many times throughout each chapter. i dont know that all the division of the story helped a lot. i did read the book in two days, so maybe if you read it over a longer period those parts and chapters might mean more. 
the scientific aspect of this book was interesting, and i wish it was explored a bit more, but i understand why it wasnt. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Vomit, Death of parent, Confinement, Medical trauma, Self harm, Suicide attempt, Trafficking, Pandemic/Epidemic, Suicidal thoughts, Addiction, Suicide, Violence, Medical content, Body horror, Murder, Blood, Terminal illness, Alcoholism, Pregnancy, Child death, Death, Gaslighting, Grief, and Police brutality

Moderate: Cursing, Animal death, Cannibalism, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Toxic relationship, Sexual harassment, Stalking, Miscarriage, and Genocide

Minor: Sexual content, Car accident, Drug use, and Deportation

nyallis0n's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

My jaw dropped multiple times during the middle and end of this book! Not for the faint of heart, definitely for those in search of a more brutal flavor of epidemic story.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Torture, Gore, Self harm, Alcohol, Child death, Violence, Body horror, Death, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Alcoholism, Blood, Cannibalism, Forced institutionalization, Pregnancy, Car accident, Grief, Gun violence, Pandemic/Epidemic, Police brutality, Confinement, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Medical content, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, and Vomit

charles_rowland's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

dilouie delivered as per usual. i’d say he’s one of the best horror authors of the decade

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Cannibalism, Violence, Gun violence, Pandemic/Epidemic, Alcohol, Death of parent, Murder, Alcoholism, Grief, Blood, Self harm, and Child abuse

Moderate: Animal death, Suicide, Grief, Gaslighting, Sexual content, and Animal cruelty

owlribbon's review against another edition

dark sad tense

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Murder, Self harm, Sexual content, Vomit, Infidelity, Terminal illness, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Violence, Child death, Death, Pandemic/Epidemic, Police brutality, Pregnancy, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Animal death, Cannibalism, Confinement, Domestic abuse, War, Suicide, Alcohol, Alcoholism, and Gore

lilybisliterate's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Pregnancy, Trafficking, Violence, Child death, Death of parent, Infidelity, Self harm, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic, Police brutality, Sexual assault, Alcoholism, Death, Kidnapping, War, and Torture

cammaleahh's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Murder, Torture, Child death, Blood, and Death

Moderate: Self harm, Sexual violence, Cannibalism, and Alcoholism

Minor: Self harm, Animal death, and Animal cruelty

savaburry's review

dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

This story was...........something lol. Conceptually & thematically this was it. The dying children coming back from the dead, the zombies, the blood lust like, it was freaky and I was here for the imagery of it. But did I enjoy it? No. Would I recommend it though? Absolutely.

While the children were the primary plot device...i guess, for all of the actual story you're following 5 adults and see how the death/reanimation of the children affect them. Before the zombies, only ONE of the main characters with a POV is at all likable, and after the zombies personalities get worse so I was barely hanging on in the "do I give a fuck" department since I never liked any of the primary people. Almost every adult was an asshole and self-centered to the point of me asking, why am I supposed to care about any of them and you know, maybe it wasn't written with the intent of making me care. It's hard to say.
In addition to me not caring about the adults of the story, this book draaaaaaaaaaagged. It dragged for so long I honestly questioned if I was going to bother to finish. The build up for the ultimate "twist" which .....isn't really a twist since it's in the synopsis didn't even come around until 2/3 of the way through. Which .....would've been fine but once it's revealed even that dragged until things went off the rails for the characters behavior wise in the last few chapters.

I get that you'd do anything for your children (I don't have any but I obviously have parents LOL), but to me what these people were doing was simply going entirely too far. There was no voice of reason with any of them. It's not fun to watch characters falling deeper into madness when even they know it's ultimately senseless and that's pretty much what this story was. Knowing that what you're doing is useless and unhelpful in the end, but continuing to choose to do it while seeing how YOUR actions are all the while severely negatively impacting the kids at the center of your choices. It was selfishness.

and YEAH! I know that selfishness and blindness are the main themes of this, but all it did was make me mad which is why couldn't give it more than 2 stars. Although.......I guess making me feel that strongly about it means it did its job.

This one wasn't my fave but for the horror aspects alone I absolutely recommend it

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Vomit, Blood, Body horror, Self harm, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Suicide

lexi17d's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

An apocalyptic horror where every child on earth dies suddenly, only to come back in need of blood to stay alive.
 
This book was quite the disturbing read. The narrative of “how far will parents truly go to protect their children” was intriguing and truly horrific in the context of this book. A fast paced, gripping horror that was graphic and unsettling, definitely a change of pace from what I have been reading recently. This book was an excellent literary horror with a unique twist on the traditional vampire narrative.

Suffer the Children was captivating and kept me wanting to read more. It was a good segway into reading more horror novels, but I would not recommend this to everyone due to the graphic nature and content of the book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Blood, Self harm, Animal death, Sexual assault, Child death, and Death of parent