Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

62 reviews

dustghosts's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

+ Beautiful turns of phrase, figurative language, the kind of writing that makes me want to also sit down and write
+ Satisfyingly cyclical, repetitive but full of just the right twists and turns that you want to keep reading to figure out what the exact same scene and setup looks like through a different set of eyes
+ Super exciting exploration and expansion of how to use POV to invoke emotion, tell a thrilling story, and string everything together
+ A very charming cast of absolutely unbearable little bastards; feels like you gain an evolving and empathetic understanding of each character with each new day

+ Despite the author’s sort of muddled/overly neutral comments in his own commentary, I find the book to be a pretty compelling allegory for and argument against the carceral state. The text itself feels distinctly poised against both the current prison system and the future potential for “mental imprisonment”.

- Some really egregious fatphobia that feels uncomfortable and gross to read, especially for a contemporary book. Not really skippable, either— while this character has other values to the narrative, fatness is treated as a debilitating moral failing reflective of character.
- So extremely British—
- Near the end, starts to feel as though things are being wrapped up too quickly, not quite as immersive as the rest of the book.

For example, I think we’re supposed to interpret Annabelle before Blackheath as as heinous as Daniel, whose villainy we’ve watched develop and worsen throughout the week. But whoever she was before feels too simply and vaguely summarized in comparison to the blunt relaying of Daniels crimes throughout the rest of the book. I wish we could spend a little more time remembering WITH Aiden, though I suppose the pacing might suffer for that.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Fatphobia, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Suicide attempt, Violence, Animal death, Blood, Gun violence, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Suicide, and Torture

Moderate: Alcohol, Sexual violence, Alcoholism, Body horror, Addiction, Classism, and Sexual assault

Minor: Infidelity, Medical content, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexism, Rape, Vomit, Body shaming, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Fire/Fire injury

maddox22's review against another edition

dark 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? Yes

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body shaming, Child death, Death, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Stalking, and Torture

Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Body horror, Chronic illness, Confinement, Drug abuse, Drug use, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, Self harm, Sexual violence, and Sexual assault

martinacrescioli7's review against another edition

mysterious slow-paced

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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, and Sexual violence

fgmetzger's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

Is this story really hard to put down? Yes. A page turner? Absolutely.
But it’s also extremely fatphobic. There is just zero need for that.
I have a hard time reading men, and this book was just bursting with toxic masculinity.
I finished this one pretty fast, because I had to know what would happen. But I’m just left frustrated.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Body shaming, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Grief, Gun violence, Murder, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, and Violence

mamaquiereleer's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.75

The way every detail in this book is important to the plot and everything is revealed in the end still has me in shock. This book was fantastically written as well.  I couldn’t put this book down! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Alcohol, Child death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Sexual violence, Suicide, and Violence

Minor: Rape

raemow's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

2.0

This concept had so much potential.. and was executed so poorly. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia, Violence, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, Rape, Physical abuse, Murder, Infidelity, Gun violence, Drug use, Death of parent, Death, Child death, Body shaming, Blood, Alcoholism, and Alcohol

claudiamacpherson's review against another edition

challenging dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.5

When Dr. Bell wakes, he is in a forest, with no memories—not the previous day, not his family, not even his own name—just the name Anna. He hears a woman calling for help and then a gunshot, and then a mysterious person (a murderer?) hands him a compass and tells him to go east. Following these dubious directions, he arrives at Blackheath, a crumbling estate currently hosting a reunion of sorts. On the following day, Bell wakes up as the Butler, and learns that he is not Bell, and it is not the following day. He is someone else entirely, but he will be trapped in a new body every day for eight days—but really just the same day, re-lived eight times from eight different perspectives. The only way to escape: he must solve the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle, who dies every evening like clockwork. But there are others in the house also trying to solve the murder—and only one can escape. There are many secrets in Blackheath, and Evelyn’s is not the only murder.

I could barely keep track of all the characters, let alone the twists and turns of the plot. Everything was a red herring, but also nothing was, because there were so many details and so many awful deeds and characters up to no good. This book reminded me a bit of <i>The Guest List</i> because both books consist of a group of unbearable characters trapped in one place. Both have dark, twisting plots and new details (and crimes), both past and present, are slowly revealed as the story progresses.

I The ending really threw me off though, because it felt totally different from the rest of the book. The worldbuilding was half-baked at best, and so few details were given about the world outside of Blackheath that I thought there was little point in giving any at all. Why introduce Anna/Annabell and Aidan’s backstories and then barely use them? I did appreciate the anti-prison stance the story took, as well as the themes of forgiveness and the ability of people to change for the better.

I think I’ve mentioned this in other reviews, but I’ll say it again: while it’s not a bad thing to have a male author, it is a red flag for me if I can tell that the author is a man from the writing alone. This was one of those books. I mean seriously, you’re going to have your protagonist jump between eight different bodies and not one of them is going to be a woman? I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but I could also tell from the way Turton described his female characters...so yeah, that rubbed me the wrong way on occasion. There was also some fatphobia in his descriptions of Ravencourt, so if that’s a trigger for you, I’d avoid this book. 

Happy ending meter (no specific spoilers, just the vibe of the ending):

Like… sort of happy? I guess? I liked the message of the ending, but it wasn’t exactly satisfying.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Fatphobia, Gaslighting, Gore, Gun violence, Medical trauma, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Torture, and Vomit

Minor: Abandonment, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, and Sexual violence

happylilfaerie's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated

5.0

Such unique storytelling, I see a lot of people didn't like it and found it confusing but if you go in knowing it'll be a read that requires you to keep your brain switched on, refer to the map and character list at the start and even tab different parts to refer back to then you'll have a very engaging fun experience. One of my favourite reads of this year.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Fatphobia, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Child death, Death of parent, Drug use, Gun violence, Infidelity, Rape, Sexual violence, Suicide, and Torture

lexiecon's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-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? Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia, Murder, Suicide, Sexual violence, Gun violence, and Violence

Moderate: Rape

Minor: Alcohol

lucyrosemack's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

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

2.0

i didn’t like this book. it was long, the twists weren’t obvious but also the first twist

in which we find out that the thing is a prison and then anna is the murderer of aidens sister

was out of left field in the worst way. it made sense for context but if there was anything to expand on more of, it would have been that. i liked the ending of the mystery, but i didn’t need the context, not really, and i feel like it kind of detracted from the feelings i had toward the main characters. 

also, it was an incredibly long book, and it didn’t need to be. there were details, little checkhov gun moments that paid off, but there were also things said that didn’t pay off, characters given too much weight or time for them to not be important at all. i also think that the setting and the timing could have been structured better, considering that was the entire content of the book, yet i still found myself confused. there were too many words in this book for the payoff, and i wish that each body he inhabits had more consistency in the amount of things we learn about them and the complaints he has about them. 

for example, ravencourt is the third host, and he comes in very early and stays for a long time in the book, and yet the entire time he was in the body, we heard graphic and extreme complaints about the weight of his host and the excruciating life of a person in a bigger body. the next body he goes into is that if a rapists, and he doesn’t seem to complain as much right off the bat the same way he does with ravencourt, and at one point i believe compares the two and says that at least he can move around more, which is so fucked up. in what world is being fat comparable to being a rapist in terms of horridness. 

just really poorly done for a really interesting idea of a groundhog day, different body each day, timed, dinner party murder mystery. two hundred pages less and a few less negative comments and maybe a more consistent approach, and it would have been great. i think this book dies in trying to do too much. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia, Suicide attempt, and Murder

Moderate: Sexual violence, Rape, Medical content, Gun violence, Death of parent, and Death