Reviews tagging 'Adult/minor relationship'

Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris

4 reviews

hocuscrocus's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

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

3.0

On the positive side, this book contains plenty of the beautiful prose I love in Thomas Harris' novels.

On the negative side, it's a slow crawl to find the plot, and it's not very satisfying when it finally shows up. 

On the extra subjective side, I found it very slow going in general. It felt like Hannibal was 13 forever and then he was 18 forever. I get that these were the parts of his life that were most significant but I still found it very slow.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Grief, Incest, Sexual violence, Death, Domestic abuse, Violence, War, Body horror, Adult/minor relationship, Antisemitism, Cannibalism, Gore, Gun violence, Medical content, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Blood, Child death, Death of parent, Kidnapping, Racism, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Police brutality, and Racial slurs

Moderate: Animal death and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Deportation

frmeden's review against another edition

slow-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

2.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Violence, Racism, Child death, Grief, Murder, and Cannibalism

Moderate: Trafficking, Adult/minor relationship, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Medical content

the best part of this book was when hannibal told lady murasaki he was in love with her and she jumped in the canal to get away from him

cyanide_latte's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad fast-paced

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

3.25

To be quite honest, I thought this book was rather middle-of-the-road. Some people I've talked to thoroughly enjoy it for the fact it serves to step behind the mystery of why the character of Hannibal Lecter is the way he is. And indeed it serves as a very interesting insight into that aspect of him! And some other people I have talked to dislike this book for the sake of the fact that it eliminates that mystery; they prefer Hannibal to remain a larger-than-life, frightening figure in their own minds. And likewise I can also understand why that might cause this book to be off-putting.

Personally I neither loved nor hated it. It was simply interesting to go through.

I think my largest criticism of this book is that it doesn't have great re-read value. It's the sort of thing that once you have read it, it's going to stick in your mind while going through the remainder of the books. And if it doesn't have great re-read value, then I look at it as an almost unnecessary book within the quartet when going through the series another time. It was good to read this once but I'm not sure how often I'll return to it.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Medical content, Blood, Body horror, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Cannibalism, Grief, Alcohol, Death of parent, Incest, Child abuse, Child death, Classism, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, and Hate crime

Minor: Genocide

freshbatchofbooks's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

The focus was on Hannibal’s childhood, but the first 50-75 pages focused on the antagonists of the novel, which made it a little difficult to follow. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Grief, Violence, Cannibalism, Child death, Death, Medical content, Murder, War, Torture, Blood, Child abuse, Death of parent, Genocide, and Gore

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Misogyny, Bullying, Stalking, Trafficking, Hate crime, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Antisemitism, Sexism, Incest, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Confinement, Misogyny, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Xenophobia, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, and Slavery