Reviews tagging 'Drug abuse'

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill

18 reviews

stephanieluxton's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

This book is about a woman who has the power of finding things and a scary man who kidnaps children to take them to Christmasland. Chaos ensues.

Things I liked: 

• The characters were great and felt realistic. We had time to get to know and love them before anything seriously terrible happened to them.
• The magical realism elements were really fun.
• There was a lot of tension! I genuinely didn't know what direction the story was going to go in. There wasn't a dramatic twist or anything, but I didn't predict the ending.
• The villains were scary. I didn't feel very scared when reading this book, but the first encounter the MC has with the villain is very stressful and tense.
• It all felt fairly original.
• We weren't overloaded with exposition. We slowly figured out what was going on as the characters did. I appreciated this!

Things I didn't like:

• As can be expected in a horror novel, theres a few upsetting/disturbing scenes.
• I get a little flustered in books when people have serious injuries and can just carry on like they're not in an absolute world of pain. Again, this seems typical in horror/thriller novels.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Self harm, Violence, Stalking, Gaslighting, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Death, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Mental illness, and Police brutality

Moderate: Drug abuse, Drug use, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual assault, Medical content, Car accident, Blood, Cursing, Rape, Misogyny, and Alcohol

Minor: Incest and Cancer

Animal death:

a dog gets hit by a car and then it's head smashed in with a hammer. Very upsetting scene.

Child Abuse: Not sure if what happens to the kids exactly counts as child abuse, but they go through some stuff. Nothing sexual though! Confinement: There's a few instances of characters being trapped in small-ish spaces. Death: Multiple deaths occur. Some are witnessed and some are talked about. Death of a parent:

Our main characters mom dies of illness. Her father gets shot by police trying to help her escape a situation. Many parents of the children taken to christmasland are killed but we mostly hear about it after the fact rather than witness it.

Fire/fire injury:

Our main character gets locked in a room and the building is set on fire. Another character gets sprayed with gasoline and set ablaze. Another character burns his hand on a tail pipe. The MC burns down her house at one point.

Gun Violence: Some people get shot. Injury/Violence: Many injuries and violence. They aren't described in excruciating detail. This isn't a splatterpunk. Kidnapping: Charlie Manx kidnaps kids to take to christmasland and kidnaps our protagonists son. Mental illness/gaslighting:

Our main character spends a lot of time in mental facilities because no one else can hear the dead kids from christmasland calling her on he phone and she struggles to understand if her "powers" are real or not.

Misogyny: Our villains, especially the gas mask man, don't respect women very much. Stalking:

The villains kill the neighbours so they can stalk the MC.

Self harm:

One characters power works best if she's experiencing pain so she burns herself with cigarettes.

Drugs/Alcohol:

Some discussion of drugs and homelessness. Our MC takes an oxy at one point. A kid is drunk at one point. The gasmask man drugs his victims and children.

Medical content: There's some discussion of an autopsy. Car Accident:

There's a car accident involving a character and a child at one point. There's also a motorcycle crash.

Blood: Moderate amount. Cursing: ome swearing but it's not every other word. Rape/Sexual Assault/Incest: This is more discussed than witnessed by the reader.

The gasmask man rapes the parents of kidnapped kids before he kills them. There's one upsetting part in which he tells another characters about forcing a dad to perform sexual acts on him. That part felt particularly upsetting. There's also an attempted rape of the MC but she outsmarts him. It is revealed early on that the gasmask man raped and killed his own mother.

Cancer: It's stated that someone died of cancer.

emilyspex's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

3.5

There were things about this book I loved and things that I hated. I loved the characters and the story, but the way the author writes really got to me. Why would a child hold another child "like a lover"? Why did he have Lou and Vic fall in love when he was 20 and she was 16? Why did the author include a racial slur in the middle of his book? Also, if I heard one more description of sweet, kind-hearted Lou as a fatty fat fat landwhale manatee fatso, I might have had a stroke. Honestly, I'm fine with having a character's fatness be an issue or struggle, but the author described this wonderful character as if he hated his guts.

There were long stretches where I enjoyed this book, but I would really struggle to recommend it to anyone.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Self harm, Drug abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Animal death, Rape, Fatphobia, Injury/Injury detail, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, Murder, Racism, and Sexism

ripxw's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, and Mental illness

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Rape, and Child abuse

Minor: Homophobia, Racial slurs, Animal death, and Terminal illness

spoookycat's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Sexual assault, Animal death, Violence, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Child death, Death, Alcoholism, Fatphobia, Gore, Addiction, Cursing, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Misogyny, Self harm, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, and Mental illness

Moderate: Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Terminal illness, Ableism, and Rape

Minor: Forced institutionalization and Drug abuse

melodyseestrees's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

1.75

Caution: There are animal deaths that get way more detail and time than the final deaths in the book.

You don't even see Vic die on page you just know she's gravely injured and then her son recollects that she died. Manx simply gets an engine to his chest. Hooper the dog gets hammered to near death and then ran over.

This book isn't so much horror as gore porn. It was a drag to push through from about 61% of the book on. One of the only fat characters gets a "happy ending" only once he becomes thin and goes to finish something saying he was told to when this wasn't ever shown to the reader.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Animal death, and Child abuse

Moderate: Sexual violence, Sexism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual harassment, Rape, Physical abuse, Murder, Kidnapping, Homophobia, Gaslighting, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Body shaming

Minor: Antisemitism, Fatphobia, Fire/Fire injury, Mental illness, Infidelity, and Self harm

mattotheratto's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-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

4.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Kidnapping, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Fatphobia

Minor: Infidelity

tieflingkisser's review against another edition

dark reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia, Kidnapping, Child abuse, Child death, Blood, Animal death, Violence, Terminal illness, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Rape, Mental illness, Forced institutionalization, Death, Death of parent, Cursing, Car accident, and Confinement

Moderate: Pedophilia, Gore, Drug abuse, Drug use, Domestic abuse, and Addiction

podanotherjessi's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

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

4.25

Wow. I wish I had read this in December because walking into a store and hearing Christmas carols while I was in the middle of this would have been horrific. This definitely has some flaws; the story gets a little muddled at points. The choice to play with timelines was maybe a mistake. Definitely has the penchant of a lot of horror of leaning on sexual assault and child abuse for scaring the reader, but not too often. Vic is a great character, flaws and all. Wayne is good too. Lou left a little to be desired though. Manx, however, is a fantastic villain, all the more because he truly thinks that he's doing the right thing.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Blood, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Kidnapping, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Drug abuse, Drug use, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Rape, and Mental illness