Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

Jackal by Erin E. Adams

20 reviews

hardella's review against another edition

dark emotional 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? It's complicated

3.5

I loved the first half of this book. It was tense, and the setting of the Appalachian mountains was brilliant. It was heavy and gruesome but the mystery was great. I truly could not pin point the who or even the who for the first half. But things started getting weird in the last quarter and I wasn’t a huge fan of the ending. It seemed kind of like a different book by the end. That could absolutely be because I’m not a huge fan of sci-fi but it just didn’t seem like the ending gave the rest of the book Justice. I would love to read more by Erin E. Adams though.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Violence, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Sexual violence

kace's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Death, Kidnapping, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Racism, Hate crime, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Blood, and Body horror

Moderate: Vomit, Toxic relationship, Sexual content, Gun violence, Stalking, Sexual violence, Eating disorder, Cannibalism, Domestic abuse, Classism, Alcoholism, Suicide, Emotional abuse, and Alcohol

brianna_moye's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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? No

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Gore

Moderate: Alcoholism and Murder

Minor: Sexual violence

edgaranjapoe's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Child death, and Racism

Moderate: Alcohol, Torture, Animal death, Domestic abuse, Grief, Physical abuse, Animal cruelty, Medical content, Violence, and Blood

Minor: Vomit, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual harassment, Panic attacks/disorders, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Cursing, Murder, Bullying, Fatphobia, Fire/Fire injury, Misogyny, Excrement, Death of parent, Medical trauma, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Confinement, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Body shaming, Hate crime, and Sexual assault

bambooboy's review against another edition

dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense fast-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gaslighting, Grief, Alcohol, Animal death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Murder, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Alcoholism, Child death, Classism, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racism, Sexual violence, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Gore, Kidnapping, and Violence

Moderate: Pedophilia, Stalking, and Vomit

melodyseestrees's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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

4.25

 A thriller with multiple red herrings and possibly corrupt cops. So just another Tuesday, eh? Liz is a flawed character the reader can empathize with. Returning home for her best friend's wedding Liz faces the judgment and complicated feelings of being back but single for reasons she doesn't want to explain.

Her boyfriend and her were very toxic with each other. The relationship ended due to a domestic dispute incident. This is revealed that the supernatural element smashed her boyfriend in the back of the head with a lamp.

 
Many of the elements within the book are well done. This is including the guilty party being surrounded by equally suspicious characters. There is one character that was not fleshed out as well as most of the others. The brother of the bride. He is revealed to be violent and racist during Liz's high school years and he is sarcastic or otherwise plainly showing his distaste for Liz. Other than that he is not exhibiting any suspicious behavior and is removed from the final confrontation rather easily. It just felt like a waste for him to be so close to being a main person in this case only for him to get a quick off page redemption arc and then get written out until the wrap up.

It is revealed that while the police and guilty party are setting up the case against Liz due to her involvement he tells them to back off her because she is just trying to help.

 
The revelation of the supernatural element was jarring despite allusions made to it throughout the pages.

It was written like it was a man until the big reveal during the final confrontation.

Even when the perspective switches to the guilty side of the coin you may mistake foreshadowing for metaphor or symbolism. If the intent was to keep the reader in the dark about the true nature of all of the elements this is masterfully done. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Sexual violence, Blood, Violence, Death, Racism, Body horror, Alcoholism, Child death, Gore, Eating disorder, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Fatphobia, Child abuse, Rape, Violence, and Animal death

Minor: Stalking

The rape and some of the violence happen off the page. Violence towards children is tagged as child abuse to cover bases. It is not presented as a classic depiction of child abuse.

melodyseestrees's review

dark mysterious 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

4.25

Sandra Okuboyeho and William DeMeritt do fantastic narrations of their story sections. You will stay firmly on the edge of your seat hoping for the safe return of the missing girl and justice for the other girls. This story takes a twist towards the fantastical so if you don't like fantastical elements in your thrillers this will not necessarily be for you. If you go in knowing to expect the element towards the conclusion you will be less disappointed though as it is well done, just not very realistic. The spoiler tag reveals the unrealistic element solidly so click at your own risk.

The Jackal is a possibly demonic entity encouraging this random white family to murder black little girls and feed him the girls' hearts so he can become real. The white family is a father, a son, and the son's wife. The father taught the son to kill only little girls as the blame can be more easily spread out amongst the populace. The son wanted to kill specifically Liz out of jealousy over her mother being a doctor when he is unable to afford the education needed to become a doctor. It is racially motivated hatred and jealousy. The wife supports her husband unquestiongly and directly participates in at least one crime, the kidnapping of Caroline. The Jackal wanted to team up with Liz instead of Doug because of her 'pure heart' as he wants to become a God and knew Doug's hatred would burn up the body too fast.

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Body horror, Domestic abuse, Gore, Kidnapping, Child death, Death, Blood, Violence, Sexual violence, Alcoholism, and Eating disorder

Moderate: Fatphobia, Violence, Animal death, Child abuse, and Rape

Much of the specifics within the tags happen off page but the implications can be intense. If you see your triggers listed proceed with caution. A character gets their leg broken pretty descriptively. Some of the details around hearts are visceral. At two points there is a heavily described deer carcass. One of those points involves popcorn kernels. I couldn't tag violence against children so I tagged it as child abuse.

ezismythical's review

challenging dark mysterious sad tense fast-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? It's complicated

5.0

Holy cow this book is amazing. It kept me guessing until the very end. The story is heartbreaking and challenging. It’s absolutely worth the read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Stalking, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Child death, Gore, Hate crime, Murder, Kidnapping, and Racism

Moderate: Alcohol, Blood, Child abuse, Fatphobia, Alcoholism, Grief, Domestic abuse, and Mental illness

Minor: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Suicide

danaslitlist's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

2.0

This was one of my most anticipated reads of October and I flew through it in just under two days of dedicated reading. While compelling with great commentary on race and society, as well as beautiful prose by the author I felt that the second half of Jackal was disappointing and a bit on the nose.

This is by no means a difficult mystery to solve and whole I found myself able to predict the general direction it was going which I  kept reading because the characters (mainly the other mothers and Caroline) were compelling to keep me going. I also found the discussion of race and being Black in an isolated rural area to be engaging and beautifully written. I almost wish the book had stuck to those moments because those were the most touching and intense moments. The uneasiness and tension was so real and engaging.

But Jackal lost me when we stepped out of the realism of the world and are introduced to the bad guy’s true identity. This idea could’ve worked for me if maybe we had more time to digest the information and if it was expanded upon. I was left with a lot of questions.

I want to take a second to say I recognize that the horror in this book comes mostly from the experiences of our Black main character, Liz facing racism and extremism in her town (and the violence against young Black girls) and that I (a white woman), am not the deciding factor of “if this is real horror” or not. In fact I think that the books more effective horrifying moments in the story are the parts where we see these experiences. My criticism is more so rooted in the execution of the plot as a whole and the almost convoluted ending.

Erin E. Adams is an incredibly gifted author and so much of this book bad me putting my hand on my heart because I could feel what she was saying, I could feel the emotion behind every sentence. This just wasn’t enough to save the book from getting a 2 star rating for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Child death, and Murder

Moderate: Domestic abuse

Minor: Sexual violence

map_to_neverland's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad medium-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? Yes

4.5

Rating: 4.5 / 5

Book Details:
-Genre: Horror
-Publication Date: October 4, 2022
-Setting: Johnstown, PA
-features creepy woods, a dark shadow, an eerie rhyme about the woods, and missing children

This horror novel contains many real world discussions, as many of the horrifying things that are happening are based in racism. It is an own voices author and I recommend looking to own voices reviews of the book as well.

It was a very creepy atmosphere. The author managed to blend more paranormal horror and real life horror. It was genuinely a very scary read. 

Told through many time periods, we get an interesting multiple POV storyline and get to see the experiences of many characters. This was one of my favorite parts of the novel, especially as it is unclear who the narrator is in sections (at first). 

Overall, if you are looking for something that is more horror (rather than thriller) and contains real world horrors, then this book would be a good fit for you.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Death of parent, Animal death, Racism, Gore, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Hate crime, Grief, Blood, Child death, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Suicide, Pregnancy, Mental illness, Racial slurs, and Stalking

Minor: Eating disorder, Alcohol, and Animal cruelty