Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

Middlegame by Seanan McGuire

16 reviews

gladiolus17's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• 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

4.0

I thought Middlegame had great characters and such an interesting premise. Dodger and Roger were very fleshed out and I was invested in their relationship. My favorite character was Erin, though! 

The other thing the book did well was metaphors. Sometimes you see books that throw in a metaphor just to be beautiful, but these ones extended the meaning of what they were comparing AND were unique and beautiful.

I was also blown away by how the timeline fit everything together. First I was confused, but then everything fell into place and I was very satisfied.

I did feel certain things were repetitive on a sentence and scene level. I’m not sure if it was necessary to have Roger and Dodger part so many times, as it dragged the narrative down a bit. As well, I felt that the metaphors around math and language were overused sometimes, since Roger and Dodger were often described as not being good at each other’s disciplines.

All in all, an enjoyable read!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Suicide attempt, and Suicide

Moderate: Body horror and Fire/Fire injury

alexhaydon's review

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Murder, Body horror, and Blood

meliroo's review against another edition

4.5

4.5 ⭐

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Murder, Blood, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Sexism, Torture, Suicide attempt, Body horror, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Self harm

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts and Vomit

kmtd's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Torture, and Violence

ashleycmms's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.0

I found the concept really interesting and the writing style fun. Usually, I am not one for anything that messes with time and rarely like Groundhog Day style books, but the use of time and time movement in this book was amazing. However, I found both the main characters to be very childish which was weird because towards the end of the book they were knocking on 30 AND still pouting and acting like kids. I understand how a lot of that can be attested to fear of what they were dealing with and also simply just the fact that they were 26/27 with no stable identity because they still did not fully deal with WHO and WHAT they are. But omg.... met things head on for once and maybe you’d know earlier. Still an amazing read so I suggest it. It’s just not a 5 star book for ME.

Also: tw suicide attempt, suicidal ideation/mentions, murders (including children), and a POC character gets murdered in specific, lots of talk about dismembered body parts

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Murder, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Torture, and Violence

cryptid_crow's review

adventurous dark hopeful sad tense medium-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? Yes

3.0

The book is entirely self referential, but doesn't make that clear until roughly 1/3 of the way through. Once it does, though, the story makes sense.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Death, Gore, Self harm, Suicide attempt, and Violence

Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Suicidal thoughts, and Self harm

Minor: Addiction, Drug abuse, and Drug use