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mirandaandtitania's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Graphic: Child abuse and Religious bigotry
Moderate: Child death, Mental illness, and Medical content
Minor: Homophobia
amplawrence's review against another edition
- 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? No
1.0
Graphic: Physical abuse, Child abuse, and Pregnancy
Moderate: Homophobia
laurenipsum's review against another edition
- 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
4.5
Graphic: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Gaslighting, Grief, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Religious bigotry, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Self harm, Sexism, Slavery, Suicide attempt, Torture, Violence, and Vomit
nickoliver's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
The problem was that the story didn't have any suspense. It was about a woman named Lex, who had been severely abused as a child by her parents (along with her five siblings) and whose family home had thus been dubbed the "House of Horror". She learnt that her mother had died and had made her the executor of the house. She and her sister Evie planned to turn it into a place of good, but in order to do that, she needed to have her other siblings' consent.
I did like the way the story was set up itself. It only had six chapters, with each chapter being titled a different sibling and dealing with said sibling in particular. However, not only were the chapters not as in-depth about the titular sibling as you'd expect, they also switched between the past and present all the time. So you'd have a paragraph where Lex visited and talked to the sibling in question, and then a paragraph that continued telling the story of what exactly had happened in the past before Lex escaped. Which I don't think was a bad format per se, but Dean just switched between timelines way too often, it got too chaotic. There were way too many timelines. And everything was also just told so ... monotonously? Of course the things Lex talked about, especially in the flashbacks (but also some of the present-day parts), were hard to digest and made you mad with disbelief, but ... that was it? I didn't leave this book still thinking about it or reeling from it. And I think because it skipped so much, it also left the book less tense than it could've been.
Plus, this might be a nitpicky detail, but the perspectives often just didn't add up. For example, one of the chapters started with Dean talking about a detective who was assigned to Lex's case, and it felt random at first - and then it turned out that that guy was
Then, like I mentioned, there was a plot twist toward the end of the book. It was that
I think a reason as to why I didn't care about the plot twist was also because it came so late in the book? I didn't even expect there to be a plot twist in the first place and already accepted that the story was lame and boring, so when it finally happened, I just didn't care about it. Also, Dean didn't really do much about it? She explained what had happened and the way Lex had dealt with it, but nothing really came out of it? Usually, when a big plot twist happens, the characters do something with that information, but that wasn't the case here.
The characters were, generally, very morally grey and infuriating. Lex showed little emotion overall - almost seemed a bit robotic at times -, and Ethan made me want to murder people (specifically him). Delilah was a religious nutjob. The only genuinely good character was Gabriel, and he had been the one who'd almost been through the most (almost felt homophobic, honestly. Sure, make the one gay kid the doormat). Evie kind of disturbed me a little, tbh.
I don't know why I expected more from this book. Maybe because I thought it was more bordering on horror and it wasn't? In the end, the book just felt pointless. And that made me kind of sad, tbh.
Graphic: Child abuse and Child death
Moderate: Drug abuse
Minor: Homophobia
CW: starvationkeroseberry's review against another edition
- 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
3.0
Moderate: Child death, Child abuse, and Physical abuse
Minor: Homophobia
abookandaspotoftea's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Religious bigotry, and Self harm
Minor: Homophobia
sydney_keeps_reading's review against another edition
- 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? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, and Physical abuse
Minor: Homophobia
elishaslibrary's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
Graphic: Confinement
Moderate: Child abuse, Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, and Death
Minor: Homophobia