Reviews tagging 'Blood'

Nosferatu by Joe Hill

35 reviews

pancakes4all's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

2.0

While this book did something new with vampires, its plot seemed to limp towards what turned out to be a pretty predictable end.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Cursing, Violence, Blood, and Kidnapping

locke_reads's review against another edition

dark tense slow-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? It's complicated

2.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Fatphobia, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Islamophobia, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal death, Domestic abuse, Rape, Medical content, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Vomit

ptoridactyl30's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense 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

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Sexism, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Drug abuse, Drug use, Blood, and Alcohol

Minor: Abandonment

melchncookies's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Abandonment, and Alcohol

Moderate: Confinement, Cursing, Drug abuse, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Police brutality, Grief, Death of parent, and Murder

Minor: Cancer, Misogyny, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, and Vomit

wrensreadingroom's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

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

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

Minor: Cancer and Incest

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.

livbarry's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny fast-paced

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

3.0

NOS4A2 wasn’t without its flaws; the blatant misogyny of the antagonists not having any direct connection to the story besides making the antagonists more dislikable REALLY bugged me, as did the blatant fatphobia.

I can’t say that I didn’t have a fun time reading this, though. The great thing about the book’s length is that it’s so dense that it’s easy to forget about the flaws until they pop up again. Its length intimidated me, but I whipped through it SO quickly. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Death, Fatphobia, Blood, and Grief

Moderate: Addiction and Animal death

painausten314's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-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? It's complicated

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Fatphobia, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual content

Minor: Pedophilia

adriennne's review against another edition

3.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Death, Fatphobia, and Self harm

Moderate: Alcoholism, Body horror, Blood, and Death of parent

Minor: Domestic abuse and Fire/Fire injury

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

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

Minor: Drug abuse and Forced institutionalization