Reviews tagging 'Death'

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

25 reviews

coolfijiwater's review against another edition

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

3.25


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lakinlindsey's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Great premise but was not a fan of the execution. This is possibly why most adaptions of this novella are also not good because the source material didn’t execute it well to begin with.

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samsonian's review

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

3.0

BRO WHAT

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kaileed's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0


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bookedbymadeline's review against another edition

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

4.0

It could be confusing and slow at times, pacing was a bit disjointed with how some of the descriptions were written. I ended up lost in the prose and having to reread passages.

I liked that the narrator is unreliable. The book takes an Interesting look at the corruption and death of innocence paired with attempts at heroism going wrong. I
also enjoyed the subtlety of the horror, it’s creepy and unnerving as you try to figure out what’s real and try to find answers to the character’s secrets.

The ending was a little open ended, leaving it to the reader to decide what happens in some aspects. It was satisfying but also somehow underwhelming.

Overall a perfect creepy, gothic horror story! But one I probably shouldn’t have read before bed 😂

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babybatx's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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carmine_b's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

The middle of this book lost me so badly that I almost dropped it. There is only so many times I could read about the governess agonizing over whether or not to confront the children about the ghosts; it was grating. The last 1/4th of the book or so was really good though, so I'm glad I stuck it out. Kind of ambiguous, but in a way that just added to the intrigue for me.

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sofipitch's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I probably wouldn't have cared for this at all if I hadn't enjoyed "The Haunting of Bly Manor", and finding what influenced that show and what didn't. But this book felt like little substance, but it was also one of the first to begin two very famous horror tropes, "creepy kids" and "what if it was all in the character's head". So I can't fault this book for having been copied SO much it seems boring now, bc it was original at the time. I still liked the TV show Bly Manor better though.

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ggcd1981's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious sad 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

4.5

 Na minha adolescência li uma adaptação de The Turn of the Screw para jovens leitores em Português. O título da adaptação era “Os inocentes” e basicamente tratava-se da obra de Henry James com um vocabulário mais acessível para jovens. Gostei bastante de “Os inocentes” e desde então sempre tive a vontade de ler a história original e finalmente realizei essa vontade. Minha primeira percepção ao ler The Turn of the screw é que a linguagem é mais complexa do que antecipei. Nada que me impedisse de entender a história, mas necessitei fazer um maior esforço para acompanhar a escrita de James. Não lembrava de muitos eventos do enredo então foi como ler pela primeira vez. Li em audiobook e a narração de Richard Armitage e Emma Thompson foram ótimas, recomendo. Uma coisa que me surpreendeu nessa leitura foi que não lembrava, ou até mesmo não percebi na primeira leitura, quão ambígua é a história.
A maior parte da narrativa é do ponto de vista da Governanta e ninguém mais além dela vê as aparições, Peter Quint e Miss Jessel. Quer dizer, ela afirma veementemente que as crianças das quais toma conta, Miles e Flora, não apenas veem as aparições, mas também que isso acontece com frequência. Porém as crianças em nenhum momento confirmam de forma clara as acusações da governanta. Peter Quint e Miss Jessel eram antigos funcionários da casa em que se passa a história, segundo a personagem Mrs. Grose, única aliada da protagonista por acreditar no que a governanta diz mesmo sem provas, Quint e Jessel eram pessoas de moral questionável e exerciam grande influência negativa nas crianças. Tanto Quint como Miss Jessel tinham morrido a relativamente pouco tempo, porém de formas diferentes. A governanta passa a atribuir todas as características manipuladoras de Miles e Flora a influência das aparições, que apenas ela admite ver. Então o que temos é uma história de terror ambígua em que tudo narrado pela protagonista pode ser verdade ou pode ser apenas uma visão perturbada dos fatos e das crianças. No final, o confronto entre a governanta e Miles deixa as perguntas: Se a governanta não tivesse insistido e pressionado naquela última conversa, completamente ignorando os sintomas febris de Miles, ele teria sobrevivido? Ele teria admitido ver as aparições? Ou a derradeira menção de Peter Quint feita por Miles, enquanto a os olhos da criança buscavam ver a aparição, foi consequência de o menino estar convencido que a governanta via o fantasma de Quint e ele, na verdade pela primeira vez, também queria vê-lo?


Essa dualidade da história é o que a torna uma grande obra, apesar que a mesma dualidade suaviza um pouco o clima de terror sobrenatural desta minha segunda experiência com a narrativa. Gostei bastante de ter lido o texto original e recomendo como um dos grandes clássicos do terror. Porém, a suavização do terror sobrenatural que senti, a dificuldade da linguagem e algumas questões menores (ex. a credulidade sem limites de Mrs. Grose) me impedem de dar 5 estrelas. Contudo a obra é um sólido 4.50 estrelas. 


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poirot's review against another edition

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

2.5


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