Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Echo by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

10 reviews

liltakeawaygirl's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, and Suicide

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Child death, Alcohol, Child abuse, and Sexual content

svnsn's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

1.75

I did not enjoy this book. I feel like it dragged on for ages with some parts feeling endless and/or redundant, without adding anything to the story really,
I do wonder though, if the German edition, which I read, was somehow dragged out much longer than the english one for example - it has about 300 pages more I think.

The story jumps from here to there, it feels like it's lacking structure.
The first chapter was honestly the only time I was spooked, after that it was all sort of whatever.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Fire/Fire injury, Suicide, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, and Death

Minor: Child death

atalea's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad medium-paced

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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Drug use, Body horror, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Confinement, Death of parent, and Medical content

Minor: Car accident, Alcohol, and Child death

shadowspinner's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Addiction and Violence

Minor: Death of parent, Child death, and Car accident

bunniv's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Medical content, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, and Animal death

Moderate: Suicide, Suicide attempt, Body horror, and Sexual content

Minor: Child death, Car accident, and Self harm

erinmjustice's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, and Gore

Moderate: Child death, Child abuse, Sexual content, and Self harm

smahlcat's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense slow-paced

As a horror novel, I’d give it one star. As a love story, 3. This book was a slog to read. The actual horror bits were great, but you had to wait a long time to get to them. Sam was one of the most annoying characters I’ve read in a while. And I recognize this is more of a translator issue, but I don’t know anyone in the US who actually says “sis” or “bro” every other sentence when talking to their sibling. There were also some… not plot holes, but not well filled plot points regarding Sam’s childhood trauma, and just who he was as a person in general.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Body shaming, Car accident, Child abuse, Child death, and Death

marleens's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-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

3.5

The opening paragraph creeped me out so much I had to stop reading and look around and breathe. That promised a lot for the rest of the book, but for me it didn’t quite live up to that promise. The horror elements of most of the book were nothing like that first paragraph, and I wonder if my expectations and experience would have been different without that beginning, because I think for a long time I was very much waiting to get back to that specific horror element. That being said, there were plenty of other good creepy moments along the way, and I liked the exploration of obsession and possession, and the things we do (or pretend not to see) for love.
I like Olde Heuvelt’s writing style, but in this book it was a bit odd. Very stream of consciousness sometimes, and a strange mixture of first and second person, often switching mid-sentence. It made sense, because you could definitely feel the characters losing their grip on reality, but it did make it hard to read sometimes. Also, I think it was a bit longer than it needed to be. But I liked our main POVs and the weirdness did often work for me. 
Still, that brilliant creepy opening paragraph might have been the best part for me…

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Medical content, Fire/Fire injury, Body horror, Death, Suicidal thoughts, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Car accident, Alcohol, and Self harm

Minor: Child death

lottevanderpaelt's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Self harm, Violence, Death, Fire/Fire injury, and Suicide

Minor: Child death

rachelunabridged's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.0

thanks to netgalley for the arc!

not gonna lie, i read the first few chapters of this and thought i was going to have a bad time. the beginning felt really jumbled and confusing. paired with my immediate dislike of one of the main characters, i thought i was setting myself up for a rough read; or worse, a dnf. that ended up not being the case as the story snatched my attention around the 20% mark and would not let me go until the end.

this story has three primary characters: nick (a journalist and outdoorsman), sam (nick's city slicker boyfriend), and the maudit (a mountain with a sinister will of its own). after a climb with fellow mountaineer augustin goes south, nick barely escapes with his life. now heavily disfigured and haunted by his memories of the doomed climb, nick begins to suspect that he didn't return from the mountain alone.

i'm a huge fan of folk horror, and this book really scratched that itch for me. it was incredibly atmospheric (after the mess that was the beginning) and full of some great moments that left me chilled.
i should go ahead and warn that this book has a heavy romance subplot. as someone that doesn't enjoy reading romance, i was worried that this would be a deal breaker for me, but it ended up being significant thematically and fit in the plot enough that it didn't feel out of place. (though there were some bits toward the beginning that really had me wanting to throw sam off a cliff, tbh.)

overall, i was surprised by how much i enjoyed this read. i was so invested once the plot picked up and started moving. it definitely could've benefited from an extra editing session or two since it's quite long for what it is, but it wasn't distractingly so. definitely give it a read if you enjoy folk horror!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Mental illness

Moderate: Sexual content

Minor: Child death