Reviews tagging 'Domestic abuse'

It by Stephen King

195 reviews

lilyee929's review against another edition

challenging dark tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Animal death, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Child abuse, and Bullying

sxndaze's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful 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

4.25

“My heart is with all of them, and I think that, even if we forget each other, we’ll remember in our dreams.”

as someone who was (and is really) obsessed with IT 2017, reading this book felt like a wild ride. the high rating is probably because of how much i love the losers and how attached i am to them and their story because there are some wild ass things stephen king writes. extremely questionable at times and it really makes you wonder why. but at its core, this is a story of love and friendship and belief and trauma and he does such an amazing job of showcasing that.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia, Gore, Homophobia, Sexual content, Suicide, Violence, Emotional abuse, Grief, Hate crime, Child death, Cursing, Death, Child abuse, Misogyny, Murder, Antisemitism, Blood, Body shaming, Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, Domestic abuse, Infertility, Racism, Self harm, Physical abuse, and Racial slurs

Moderate: Alcohol and Torture

locoemsky's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Antisemitism, Sexism, Fire/Fire injury, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Animal death, Toxic relationship, Torture, Sexual harassment, Racial slurs, Fatphobia, Sexual content, Death, Racism, Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, Cursing, Bullying, Body horror, Animal cruelty, Body shaming, Homophobia, Hate crime, and Gore

miawallace3's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny medium-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

4.0

The story/plot in this book I really enjoyed and the deep dive into all the characters made you feel so much more connected to them. But there was a lot of stuff in this book that was FOUL (unnecessary use of slurs, sexualizing 11 yr olds, child ORGY?!?!?!) but if you skip over the obvious glaring issues myself and most every other reader has with this book, it is a really good horror story. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Racial slurs, Sexual violence, Homophobia, Racism, and Murder

mboard's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.75

Sigh. This is hard to rate because this book is a monstrous 1200 pages which means there’s just a lot to digest.

First off, I wasn’t scared basically the whole book. Honestly, the scariest scene was adult Bev trying to escape her super abusive husband Tom to get to Derry to kill It once and for all. Tom being so unhinged stressed me the f*** out. My perspective is that It really isn’t that scary to adults hence why It is only visible to children and preys on them. The only reason the gang is terrified as adults is the memories of being attacked when they were young where the imprints of that trauma are carried with them into adulthood. The idea makes sense but I had high expectations of being scared and It did not deliver.

The characters and town of Derry are so real and lived in you feel like Derry was your hometown and you knew of Henry Bower’s to big bully and the nerds like Bill and Richie that were always nice but on the outskirts. But if I didn’t feel like I grew up with these kids after 1200 pages I would be irate. There were definitely some of the kids I liked better than others. Eddie is my boy. His mother pushing psychosomatic illnesses on him his whole life making him belief he’s weak and fragile. When faced with that fact he decides to stay comfortable and allow himself to be babied instead of essentially throwing away everything he thought he knew about himself. I felt that was so authentic and real I just wanted to hug him. 

In terms of plot, I enjoyed the adults storyline over the kids but the way SK weaves the two timelines together especially at the end is masterful. There were times I was just in awe of how perfectly he transitioned between 1958 and 1985. The kids storyline of them just getting bullied wasn’t as interesting to me as the dread of facing It after 27 years and how their lives turned out after such intense trauma. The plot definitely wasn’t perfect though like why in the hell is there a child 0rgy?? Why are we getting descriptions of 12 year old Bev’s tiny t!tties? I don’t wanna hear it. Ew. 

I just don’t know how I feel about it but it’s a book that is definitely memorable for it’s characters and atmosphere. Would I say it’s worth the read? Ehhhhh I don’t know.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Racial slurs, and Homophobia

Moderate: Child abuse, Sexual assault, and Antisemitism

kaitoro_walker13's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-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

5.0

Phenomenal. Just phenomenal.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death and Death

Moderate: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, and Racial slurs

isolated_matrix's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Domestic abuse, and Bullying

oleaceae_18's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.75

I would call this book outdated at best. I think the premise of the book and the monster is pretty interesting, and I can see why it's a classic. But there's too much racism and misogyny for me to actually enjoy the reading experience. The female characters are written in a way that you can tell they are written by a man, too over sexualized, traumatized, and not enough depth to them.

The weird child sex part totally turned me off the book and didn't seem necessary to include.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, Racial slurs, Sexual content, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Racism, Suicide, Toxic relationship, and Violence

child sex, N word

zeph1337's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

3.5

This was a little bit of a rougher one for me. On the hand I really enjoyed everything surrounding the "Losers club", the whole friendship aspect and for lack of a better term the general "Stranger Things" vibe of this book. All this was really well done and absolutely resonated with me. I also think that all the main characters are really well done and have quite distinct voices.
 
On the other hand though all the harsh brutatily that is depicted in this book was not easy to read at all. And I also feel like the book is way to long and meanders about too much leading to boredom quite a lot of times which then leads to shorter reading session than I usually do or picking up a different book inbetween.

After such a long book I was really hoping for a great ending but I also got a little disappointed in that regard. It just did not land for me and then there also was that one incredibly weird and disturbing scene ...

Overall I am quite glad that I finally picked up a King book after reading The Dark Tower years ago but I don't think I'm gonna do it again for a little while.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Murder, Physical abuse, Fatphobia, Homophobia, and Violence

ardentlyandi's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad slow-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

4.0

Came for Pennywise, stayed for The Losers Club. A heartfelt tale about childhood friends and togetherness. Slow paced but always moving forward. Each character feels real (Beverly and Stan less so) and fun to read about. I didn’t care for depictions of Beverly, and I don’t really believe the sewer scene was necessary. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Racial slurs, Racism, Cursing, Gore, Grief, Blood, Body horror, and Death

Moderate: Animal death, Physical abuse, Suicide, Animal cruelty, Ableism, Domestic abuse, and Fatphobia

Minor: Homophobia and Sexual content