Reviews tagging 'Murder'

The Villa by Rachel Hawkins

103 reviews

lialovesreading's review

challenging dark emotional reflective tense fast-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Infidelity, Grief, Murder, Alcohol, Toxic relationship, Child death, and Cursing

Moderate: Sexual content, Toxic friendship, Violence, and Vomit

Minor: Miscarriage and Pregnancy

chanlo1994's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Blood, Drug use, Death, Alcohol, Pregnancy, Murder, Toxic relationship, and Infidelity

Moderate: Vomit, Child death, and Chronic illness

Minor: Miscarriage

Loved the twists

tierraskye's review

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Drug abuse, Blood, Alcohol, Body horror, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Drug use, Death of parent, Miscarriage, and Murder

Minor: Abortion

savheath's review

adventurous dark mysterious reflective fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death and Murder

Moderate: Suicide, Gore, and Toxic relationship

nursestern's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

This book was twisty and captivating, I enjoyed the relationship dynamics between Chess and Em. I also enjoyed the similarities between their friendship and the relationship of Lara and Mari. The deeply interwoven tale of the residents of Villa Aestas will have you on the edge of your seat, devouring every detail as you try to piece the puzzles together. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Alcohol, Suicide, Child death, and Murder

mars_loves_books's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Murder, Toxic relationship, and Infidelity

Minor: Child death and Suicide

staceen's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No

5.0

It took me a minute to get into the 70s plot, but once I did, I flew through this book. A fun thriller that I thought was really different. I was a little surprised by some of the author's choices, but not mad. 

For example, Matt actually wasn't poisoning Em, Chess was telling the truth about only sleeping with him once, and are we not going to address the fact that Chess stole Em's book and wanted to take credit with her agent? I did love Mari's last secret at the very end.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Drug use and Alcohol

Minor: Infidelity

lbkenna's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Death, Adult/minor relationship, and Murder

brett311's review

dark mysterious sad medium-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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Drug abuse

Moderate: Child death

Minor: Miscarriage

bookstorian's review

3.5

➕️ Something about reading about writers that fascinates me. I really enjoyed the dynamic between Emily and Chess, it was intriguing.
 ➕️ I was gripped and shocked at times but not as consistently as I would have liked. Perhaps because the book wasn't really a thriller as I was expecting.
 ➕️Enjoyed some of the post reading activities surrounding the book such as listening to podcasts, reading some interesting theories about the ending and discovering that it was inspired by Mary Shelley (author of Frankenstein) 

➖️Struggled between the timelines, amount of characters (two with the same name) and genres that were thrown in, some of these exerpts were unnecessary. 
 ➖️The execution of the concept of how houses remember. It was an intriguing idea but I didn't really find the house to really remember. 
 ➖️The genre seemed to be more adult fiction or mystery than thriller, mainly due to pacing. It also was trying to be gothic (place as character) but didn't achieve this in my opinion. 

✍️ "... a legacy is both a gift and a curse". Pg192 

 🛍 I purchased my copy from The Nile Australia 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Suicide and Child death