Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

154 reviews

lilcassieg's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Drug use, Torture, Blood, Child death, Death, Violence, and Alcohol

Minor: Body shaming, Rape, and Mental illness

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

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

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

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

dorin_d's review

challenging mysterious tense 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? It's complicated

4.5

initially slow to start but after 3/4 if the way through i found that i could not put it down! a murder mystery with a time loop at its centre made reading it sometimes confusing, but still enjoyable. i do wonder if the book may have too many plot twists, especially when

we find out this loop is happening inside a prison as punishment for inmates, like a black mirror episode,

as i found this introduced more questions than answers. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Gun violence, and Violence

Moderate: Drug use and Drug abuse

Minor: Rape and Sexual assault

ambarleti's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Drug use, Ableism, Suicide, Fatphobia, Murder, and Child death

Moderate: Child abuse

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

breadbummer's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective 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? Yes

3.5

On the whole, it's an interesting premise. What if someone took your run-of-the-mill Victorian murder mystery but twisted it a little to make it so the same person was living the same day over and over again in other people's bodies? In my case, as someone who's always found sleuth stories about rich people getting murdered at fancy parties to be cheesy and repetitive, I found this story to be...well, cheesy and repetitive. Not repetitive in itself, but it uses the types of characters and themes typically found in this genre.

As far as content goes, whenever a cis man writes a book like this with not a few female characters in it, I expect a "she breasted boobily down the stairs" moment to show itself before too terribly long or at least for pretty much all the women to fall for the central male character (no matter how strongly they're written) but, to my pleasant surprise, I don't ever actually remember this happening. HOWEVER!!! If you're particularly sensitive to fatphobia, don't bother even touching this book, much less opening it up. The rather long section in which the main character goes through the day as Ravencourt is punctuated pretty much every sentence or two with disgust of the host's body. It got to be so uncomfortable that I almost dropped the book entirely if it weren't for the fact that I was behind on my reading goal.

I just finished it like half an hour ago, so my take on the ending might still need some time to cook, but I think I enjoyed it. I certainly got got about who the culprit ended up being (which took me some time to appreciate more), and I thought the idea of this whole scenario of Blackheath being kind of like

the episode "White Christmas" from Black Mirror absolutely fascinating to say the least (still wondering if the events at the mansion actually happened earlier on in the timeline and that the plague doctors gained control of it or if absolutely everything was conjured up by them).

I was originally gonna go with a rating of 3.25, but these final twists bumped it up a bit.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Fatphobia, Murder, Child death, Suicide, Body shaming, Stalking, and Classism

Moderate: Self harm, Gun violence, Confinement, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Sexual assault, Drug use, Animal death, Rape, Car accident, Blood, and Body horror

shree's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Murder, Death, Blood, Gun violence, and Violence

Moderate: Drug use, Sexual harassment, Addiction, Self harm, and Child death

Minor: Rape