Reviews tagging 'Death'

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

341 reviews

iamaprettyflower's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Child death, Death, Drug use, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

cozyfantasyfaetay's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Fatphobia, and Murder

Moderate: Suicide, Blood, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Gore, Infidelity, and Classism

crimsonsparrow's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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

4.75

Time travel meets murder mystery meets Face Off... This has got to be one of the most complicated, convoluted detective stories I've ever experienced - in the most interesting and unique possible way. I didn't care how it ended; it was a fascinating ride. 

I was especially intrigue  by the author's ingenious use of a unique, first-person narrative and meta-narrative.  It had both both a science fiction feel and a psychological thrill without compromising the best character qualities of the MC.

The only reason it's not a perfect 5:  I would have liked some of the details to be more meticulous. Some things that seemed important up-front ended up a tad slap-dash in the end.  It got a little rushed at the end.  And the final explanation was not terribly well-supported or as well-developed as so many other aspects of the story. I absolutely recommend it, though, if for nothing else than novelty's sake

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Blood

Moderate: Violence, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Confinement, Drug abuse, Gun violence, and Alcohol

wickedgrumpy's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.5

To relate it to a movie mash up, take Being John Malkovich and pair it with Knives Out with a dash of unexplained world building sci-fi time loop situation. 

Premise was quite good, but the execution suffered.  It dragged in the middle and the wrap up at the end wasn’t very satisfying because it left so many questions unanswered.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Dysphoria, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

shawniejo's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Murder, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

Moderate: Torture and Suicide attempt

Minor: Rape

star's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Abandonment

Moderate: Child death, Fatphobia, and Rape

33vee's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-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? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gun violence, Suicide, Violence, Suicide attempt, and Murder

Moderate: Alcohol

Minor: Infidelity, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual harassment

priscillarobock's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Murder, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

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

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

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

blewballoon's review against another edition

dark 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

3.5

I was intrigued and a little intimidated by the premise of this book, but the intimidation wasn't needed. The author does a good job of dropping the reader into the story and having the POV character figure things out along the way. This book feels like a mystery-thriller, and leans more one way or the other depending on which body the main character is inhabiting and how that host's mind works. I did sometimes get annoyed by the

footman popping up to be a malicious murderous nuisance in scenes where there was already danger and tension, so he felt like overkill.

The descriptions of people are mostly grotesque and include mentions of being fleshy, wrinkled, or gaunt. If it's a maid, they are almost universally described like "[hair color] spilling out of her cap" on introduction. Minor complaint aside,  the descriptions across the book in general are very immersive and quickly get you a mental picture of the scene. I was very absorbed in trying to put the pieces of the mystery together, but didn't solve it for myself before the reveal.

I don't love when a murderer's motivation is basically just that they're a psychopath, that feels lame. There was so much to the mystery that there should have been enough for a more compelling motivation.

I also don't know how I feel about the explanations offered for the premise

I remember feeling a little taken out of the story when the plague doctors spoke to each other. I never got a good sense of what time period this was. It seemed like an afterlife thing, like maybe they were in purgatory, but then it sounded like this was the normal prison system for living people??

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Fatphobia

Minor: Drug abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Alcohol, and Classism