Reviews tagging 'Police brutality'

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

4 reviews

onlyincursive's review

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious 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? Yes

4.5

A wild ride from start to finish. This book is for the readers who grew up on stories about kids with powers (e.g. Animorphs, Percy Jackson) and who want the adult version. The type of book that I would recommend to everyone - if only the content warning list wasn’t so long!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Fire/Fire injury, Drug use, Animal cruelty, Toxic relationship, Suicide, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Murder, Gaslighting, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Gore, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Death, Violence, Kidnapping, Child abuse, Death of parent, Suicide attempt, Medical content, Mass/school shootings, Torture, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Addiction, Confinement, Cursing, Rape, Drug abuse, Xenophobia, Car accident, War, Toxic friendship, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Misogyny, Bullying, Classism, Mental illness, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Islamophobia, and Pregnancy

This book is hard to warn for. Be especially aware that there is torture and murder of children

(many of whom are effectively immortal and experience this torture and murder multiple times)

, as well as a lot of animal death

(including many, many dogs)

.

storyorc's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

This book makes exorbitant promises and delivers things adjacent to those promises in a surprising and thrilling way. Hawkins pushes the limits of what a reader can stomach in both the fantastical and the moral sense yet the book has its own near-nihilistic sense of humour. His characters are weird and often harsh but never quite unsympathetic.

My only complaints are the huge loss in momentum between the last two acts and that the first chapter had me hungry for much more interaction between Carolyn's terminally messed up 'family'. 

If you like stories like The Old Guard, the ending of IT, Harrow the Ninth, Wild Seed, and/or Sandman, or have any interest in exploring how abysmally human morals scale when people live too long and get too strong (and can handle some existential dread), pick this up.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Rape, Torture, Toxic relationship, and Suicide

Moderate: Drug use

Minor: Police brutality

4jakers18's review

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? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Blood, Body horror, Incest, Kidnapping, Medical content, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Child abuse, Child death, Car accident, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Domestic abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, Mass/school shootings, Murder, Terminal illness, Violence, War, Medical trauma, Self harm, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Cursing, Addiction, Animal death, Police brutality, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicide attempt, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Abandonment

upperjackpain's review

dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Mass/school shootings, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Violence, and Medical content

Moderate: Sexual assault and Vomit

Minor: Incest and Police brutality