Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

48 reviews

moobell55's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Body horror, Animal cruelty, Death, Mental illness, Blood, Murder, and Suicide

While the book does contain bodily gore it is not very descriptive and briefly mentioned. The death and killing of small animals how is described and happens multiple times throughout the book. A reference to suicide to mentioned but describes of witnessed.

ladybean1008's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Suicide, Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Death

wickedgrumpy's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.5

The pseudo fantastical nature was foreboding and creepy in a good way, but I'm not a big horror person so I mostly just wanted to get away from the sentient fungi.  I did read the short story it is based on which was predominantly vibes, and I liked this reinterpretation of it more than the original because the characters had much more depth.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Alcohol, Body horror, Confinement, Medical content, Mental illness, Slavery, Death, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Classism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Terminal illness, Toxic friendship, Cursing, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Medical trauma, Sexism, Stalking, and Toxic relationship

mr_cain's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark informative mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

Fascinating concepts.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Pandemic/Epidemic, Terminal illness, Gore, Blood, Murder, Body horror, Animal death, Death, Chronic illness, and Grief

Moderate: Blood

Minor: War, Misogyny, Death of parent, Gun violence, and Confinement

rabidteddybear's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Gore, and Animal cruelty

Moderate: War and Medical content

Minor: Transphobia

anni_swanilda's review against another edition

dark funny informative mysterious medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Gore, Terminal illness, Alcohol, and Body horror

Moderate: Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Misogyny

Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic, Suicide, and War

lycheejelly's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Animal death, Alcohol, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Death of parent, Gore, War, Blood, Murder, Terminal illness, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, and Vomit

nadiaxm's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death

Moderate: Gore, Body horror, and War

librarymouse's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious 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

3.75

This was a fast and interesting read. The first half of the book was a little slow, and the last half a little fast, but overall the pacing added to the element of mystery. It wasn't hard to guess where the story was going, in terms of the fungal poisoning, but smaller aspects of the mystery were still surprising.

Madeline having been dead since before the start of the events of the novel was an interesting twist. It makes a lot of sense looking back. It's also really neat how the integration of a language with so many pronouns into the plot through the character of Alex creates further interest and intrigue in how Maddie and Alex interact concerning the way she references the fungus as if it were a child. I don't have any particular love of Poe, beyond the general appreciation, but this was an engaging use of his premise.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Medical content, Animal cruelty, Terminal illness, Mental illness, Body horror, Death, Eating disorder, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Gore

Moderate: Suicide, War, Misogyny, and Vomit

I marked eating disorders as being a graphic description because of the ways in which the emaciated characters are explained in depth.

cowardlyteaman's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

Ouch

Unfortunately, this did not hold up to my expectations.

First of all, I don't see the need for this fictional world that Kingfisher has created. She spends valuable pages explaining a world that isn't relevant to her story. That's not to say that I don't like it, but I wish she would've chosen one or the other—fantasy novel or a short horror story.
Because the mystery doesn't really start until the book is nearly done. I never really got the feeling of something ominous or even anticipation for what happened next. Well, that isn't entirely true. The part about the rabbits really intrigued me! But Kingfisher's writing style here seems too—rushed. She's moved on to the next point before she ever lets the last impression set in. I want more detail—insight into the characters.
Still, I like that she writes a non-binary character without writing an LGBT novel. I'm gay myself—I have nothing against them, but representation in genres that aren't LGBT is important, I think. Normalises it.

Another thing I'd like to mention, is that I personally didn't like at all the part where the fungus learns to talk and speaks through Madeleine and stuff. It was boring, really. Felt cliché and wasn't actually eerie in the least.

Well, as a whole, I just think the mystery and horror never struck me. I very rarely read horror at all, but I do love Poe's work, so this disappointed me deeply.

However! Not a bad book. As I said, there were parts that intrigued me, but I'd really expected more of this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, and Death

Moderate: Alcohol and Grief

Minor: Vomit, Transphobia, War, Misogyny, Sexism, and Suicide