Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

82 reviews

heini's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Fatphobia, Confinement, Alcohol, Death, and Child death

Moderate: Blood, Sexual violence, Infidelity, and Sexual assault

Minor: Drug use, Torture, Fire/Fire injury, Animal death, and Stalking

barrh's review against another edition

adventurous 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? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Murder

Minor: Death of parent and Suicide

mpbookreviews's review against another edition

challenging mysterious tense medium-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? Yes

4.0

Despite there being a detailed map at the start of the book and multiple descriptions of the surrounding area I still can’t picture what Blackheath looks like in my head because it was confusing 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Child death, Death, Fatphobia, Grief, Blood, Gun violence, and Violence

annareads97's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-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

5.0

Honestly mind blowing. A book that I already can’t wait to read again just to see what I pick up on, now that I know how it ends. At no point did it go where I was convinced it was going. This is one I would pay a good amount of money to be able to read again for the first time. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Death, Drug use, Blood, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, Classism, Murder, and Violence

emory's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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

Amazingly detailed and fleshed out mystery and setting, but the 4th dimension chess about Aiden interacting with himself in other bodies throughout the day kind of ruined it for me. I was expecting the day to reset and his other bodies to return to their natural course of action on the day each time he failed to solve the murder; while I don't want to fault a novel for not living up to what I expected, the mystery itself seemed to take a backseat to our narrator trying to puzzle out where to be and what information he already knows in other hosts' brains. Not to mention how many paradoxes he creates by changing the way he interacts with old hosts (and the amount of time he spends trying to do this and his nonsensical failures at it). We're withheld important clues more than once to make the reveal more dramatic, and we're meant to remember details mentioned once, but reminded over and over again of obvious information--such as why our narrator is scared of someone literally hunting him down--as if we'd have no idea. 

The appearance of a masked mystery character who showed up just to tell our narrator exactly what was going on got on my nerves as well. I wasn't particularly sold on the reason Aiden was at Blackheath anyway, but surely there was some better way to insert that idea and others into the plot besides having a character who constantly shows up to dump information at us?

Laundry list of annoyances aside, it's a great version of those classic sorts of "big house, high society, dirty secrets" mysteries. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Suicide, Fatphobia, Death, Murder, and Child death

Moderate: Rape

Minor: Animal death

One character our narrator inhabits is described as very fat, and while in this body the narrator never stops talking about how disgusting and shameful it is and how he can barely move. It is very oversold and strongly implied that

this character forcing a woman under half his age to marry him by bribing her family

is made more horrifying because he is fat. The narrator inhabits the body of a man who is a serial rapist (not spoiler tagging bc it is one of the first things he learns about the man). No attacks are shown or described graphically but other characters speak flippantly of the crimes.

lizziaha's review against another edition

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No

3.25

I have to give it to the author for the sheer complexity of the story, as well as making each of the 8 hosts distinctly different characters, but after that, this book is just average. I didn’t feel like the characters really had motivations behind their actions, more like they were just playing the parts. And despite the fact that the men far outnumbered the women, not a single woman came across as complex or multi dimensional. As for the plot twists, I either guessed them or didn’t really care about them, so I didn’t really feel the need to keep turning the page. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Body shaming, Fatphobia, Ableism, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Gun violence, Sexual assault, Murder, and Classism

Moderate: Rape, Child death, Misogyny, Sexism, Suicide, and Violence

Minor: Confinement, Drug use, Death of parent, and Addiction

simonlorden's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

A very twisty and interesting story.

cw: Fatphobia. there is an overweight character who is described in very disgusting terms over the book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Child death, Death, Death of parent, and Fatphobia

Moderate: Sexual assault

throwback682's review against another edition

mysterious 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? Yes

3.5

This was a really surprising and fascinating concept. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Gaslighting, Drug abuse, Blood, Death of parent, Suicide, Body shaming, Murder, Child death, Confinement, Death, and Fatphobia

Oh my God the fatphobia about Ravenscourt was BEYOND EGREGIOUS. I almost DNF’d over it. I wish the author would put out a revised edition without all that garbage. He explained the experience of suddenly

being in an elderly body well and without denigrating elderly people. He could’ve easily done the same with a fat body.

Yes we get it you’re disgusted by fat people, Jesus Christ let’s keep it moving. I legit took off 1.5 stars just for that. Great book otherwise.

lexi_cannistra's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence and Murder

Minor: Body shaming, Child death, Death, Drug use, Alcohol, Death of parent, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Suicide, and Rape

strawberrytheauthor's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious 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? No

5.0

Honestly the beginning of the book is kind of slow and frustrating because you know nothing just as Aiden Bishop (the main character) knows nothing. He doesn’t even know his name. It picks up though and then it is a crazy ride.

I tried making multiple guesses about the things that were going to happen in the book but I was often wrong. There were a lot of twists and turns and I definitely did not see the final twist coming. 

When I started reading I thought it would be a four star book at most but it really delivered. When I got to the final day I was worried that all the plot holes would remain holes, but Turton made sure that everything got wrapped up in a neat, tidy bow. 

I loved this book and would read it again. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Infidelity, Animal death, Blood, Classism, Death, Murder, Alcohol, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Gun violence, Child death, Suicide attempt, and Violence

Moderate: Drug use, Self harm, Bullying, and Torture

Minor: Medical content, Rape, and Sexual content