Reviews with content warning for Suicide attempt - The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

Reviews tagging 'Suicide attempt'

The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

106 reviews

monstersinspace's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.0

Spoilers throughout: Interesting and well written, I don't know how the author kept up with all the characters and days. I could have done without the whole "omg this character is so fat and disgusting how can he even exist" chapters but what can you do? I actually did predict most of the ending, but I don't know how I feel about Aiden forgiving Anna for brutally torturing and killing his sister and arguably he didn't he just chose to live as someone that it basically didn't happen to. Also it's not like Anna realized she was a horrible disgusting murder, they literally just made her forget she was and I don't think that's the same thing. It all kind of just doesn't vibe with me, usually people who think anything is forgivable are the ones that need that forgiveness. Also the fact that Anna can just live without the horrible things she did if she wanted to, while her victims have to remember it every day is really fucked up. The whole time Aiden interacts with multiple people who love brutality and murder and he's disgusted by them, yet he's totally cool with Anna having done that cause he thinks she changed but all she did was forget how much she loved those things.

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kumquats87's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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zerer's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

I personally really enjoyed reading this book! Felt there were so many twists and turns especially as I got closer and closer to finishing it up. It did take me a bit to get into the book as I did jump from a completely different genre and tone of voice but nonetheless it was an interesting read from beginning to end. I do wish I had the detective skills that Aiden has!!

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cozyfantasyfaetay's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

2.5

Slow start, didn't really enjoy it until I knew the twist. Lots of characters and hard for me to follow 😵‍💫 But maybe better for murder mystery fans.

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shawniejo's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

4.0

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star's review

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mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

This book was complicated for me. I really enjoyed it, but it was pretty hard to get through at points. Possibly that was because I was already anxiety-ridden waiting for something in my personal life, but the palpable anxiety throughout the book did not help me.

I found the relationships between the characters quite interesting, but unraveling it took quite a bit of time. Especially jumping between the hosts, I felt like I needed a huge wall of pictures and colorful yarn to figure that out.

I will say that the ending made the book very worth it for me. Between all the points being added and deducted in my brain for various things, I think I have settled on a 4 star rating. Good enough to finish, but not good enough to keep -- I will be donating this sometime soon. (Which is great, as I bought it at a half-price used books sort of deal, and I believe it was one of the donated ones (they also carry limited new selections).)

Now, for the spoiler portion:

I found the comparison of Anna to Hitler to be unnecessary, especially because Aiden just fucking ignored that anyway. I LOVED the twist ending, though - I did not expect for a second that Evelyn was actually Felicity, and that the REAL Evelyn was hiding. I also can appreciate how many of the characters died in various ways that WEREN'T Evelyn. I can't believe they wiped out the entire Hardcastle family in this book.

Finding out that Evelyn was to be married to Ravenscourt killed me though. And so many little plot points just stood out to me. It was a shame it was a bit of a slog.

I have seen a lot of complaints online about the descriptions of Ravenscourt in this book. Personally, the fatphobia was expected for me. As someone who is "medically obese" (a term I hate) it bothered me, but not enough to get me to stop reading. It was quite repetitive and gratuitous, as most of his descriptions of the characters "negative" traits are, but oh well. I do think that I would not have read this book if I had seen those reviews first.

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