Reviews tagging 'Kidnapping'

All Hallows by Christopher Golden

9 reviews

finnsnowbevi's review

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Blood, Body horror, Addiction, Alcohol, Death, Abandonment, Grief, Emotional abuse, Stalking, Alcoholism, Child death, Gore, Confinement, Cursing, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Lesbophobia, and Mental illness

Moderate: Pedophilia, Outing, Self harm, Suicide attempt, Kidnapping, Child abuse, Racism, and Vomit

Minor: Medical content and Sexual content

carbinara's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

Tony Barbosa I would die for you. I reallt enjoyed the relationships between the characters and how the whole book was spanning over one night, but sort of felt the children (especially Arthur) were a little underdeveloped.

Additionally, I felt like it was missing some sort of background about Carmun and the Cunning Man. He seemingly kidnaps kids for her but also stops those kids from taking other children? Also, why did he kill Ruth and Zach (not that they didn’t deserve it)?

Very fun Halloweeny book, maybe should have saved for October. Still, even though this review may seem a little negative, I very much enjoyed reading it and that’s the important part imo :) Definitely recommend

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Infidelity, Grief, Body horror, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Murder, and Outing

Minor: Pedophilia and Racism

hollyberry_books's review

dark mysterious tense medium-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? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Gore, Child abuse, Kidnapping, Infidelity, Body horror, Self harm, Violence, Child death, Outing, Murder, Blood, Misogyny, Death of parent, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Vomit, Homophobia, Sexual harassment, and Alcoholism

yomireads's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.75

Often, horror as a genre takes the fear of innocence lost and social taboos and uses sexual infidelity/deviance as tool to do so. All Hallows certainly has plenty of infidelity and the like, but I don't feel it furthers the horror. If anything it muddies the waters of the story with the characters personal drama. It felt out of place with the Cunning Man and these mysterious children.

The couple on the block proported to be an open couple that swings being used as a villainous presence outside of anything supernatural felt very close-minded especially.

Done well is the alienation children feel as their parents' troubles bleed into the rest of the family, and the fear of leaving behind the familiar. The lesbian character does feel a touch on the nose, but the fear of being outed and the tenuous hold on who to trust is good. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Murder, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Misogyny, Lesbophobia, Homophobia, Alcohol, Infidelity, Outing, Toxic relationship, Biphobia, and Death of parent

Moderate: Kidnapping, Confinement, Pedophilia, Self harm, and Physical abuse

minimicropup's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Adventurous, curious, reflective. 

We follow several families with POVs from kids, teens, and adults around the neighbourhood over the course of Halloween night in 1984. 
🇺🇸 Set in Coventry, Massachussetts, USA
🎃 Halloween night setting - big parties, small hang outs, trick-or-treating!

🎧 Narration was good - sometimes the voices of smaller kids was a bit silly sounding but didn't knock me out of the story. 

🐺🐕Growls, Howls, and Tail Wags: 

🤫 I had audio only and would say this is def a pay-attention story on audio. The third person omniscient narration is deep in different character's minds and we switch POVs as needed. I loved it, it was done well and worked for the story without being repetitive or confusing, but if I got distracted for a second or two  I'd be slightly lost for a bit if we had switched characters or setting.

🫣 Lots of suburban scandals and drama, but it isn't OTT or soap opera, campy style. Pretty realistic family and relationship dynamics. 

👍 There are a lot of characters and families, and  when audio only, that can be hard to follow. For me it was excellent because we get a show-not-tell style introduction to each of them and we spend more time with them at the beginning of the book before the action starts up so we can rapidly switch between them later without being lost. It probably also helps that I cared about (or was at least curious about) what happened to all of them. 

🤕 There are quite a few action-fight-survival type scenes. I find I lose interest in that type of scene mainly because it's hard for me to imagine a fight scene happening quickly when I'm reading it so everything is sort of slow-mo in my imagination. I still enjoyed the overall plot, and if you like action-fight-escapes vs monsters then this could be a huge perk! The story starts off gradually layering the creepy, dark vibes and then proceeds to the faster paced wildness. 

🤐 Speaking of which, those fight and escape scenes are "if these monsters existed, this is how it would go down" realistic. So...don't get too attached....there are some surprisingly sad scenes. 

Mood Reading Match Up: 

• Cozy, '80s, fall Halloween trick-or-treat, home-made haunted woods, and block party horrors
• Creepy kids, stay-out-of-the-woods creature feature with action survival suspense
• Suburban  behind-closed-doors drama
• Heartwarming and heartbreaking BFF coming-of-age stories

Content Heads-Up: Physical abuse (relationship). Alcohol (enabling, addiction). Infidelity (discovery, separation/divorce). LGBTQ coming-of-age rep (good to excellent; vocally supportive family and friends). Homophobic characters (outing, shaming, verbal and emotional abuse). Kidnapping (insinuated). Child abuse (insinuated). 

Format: Scribd Audio

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Outing, and Child abuse

bloomandgloom's review against another edition

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? It's complicated

2.5

I had such high hopes for this book. It gave me the closest vibe of the Trick r' Treat movie and I appreciate it. The different stories and paths weaving together was a great way to tell a Halloween story. That's really the best part of this book. There isn't any horror to this story, at all. It's set in the 1980s in mid east Massachusetts. I appreciated the landmark references since I know the area and understand the forest behind the house vibes it was going for. 

I didn't care about any of the characters in this story, no one had enough development to make me root for them. The Cunning Man was not scary or interesting since we know nothing about him. The book would have seemed much better if there had been a local legend or a story people told young children to scare them but no one believes it. It could have done with some references of missing children on Halloween in different locations across the country or world. Overall, it just needed a little more mystery and lore to make it more believable. A family member also could have known someone that went missing to tie it together. 

I am not an author so I'm not going to pretend like it would have been easy or quick to add all of that in. 

Sadly, this was disappointing and not something I'd recommend as a Halloween read. I wouldn't even recommend it to someone younger because they might find it scary since there are a lot of adult topics discussed. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Lesbophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Racial slurs, Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Gore, Homophobia, and Misogyny

Moderate: Alcohol, Outing, Alcoholism, Xenophobia, Sexual harassment, Bullying, Infidelity, Violence, Sexism, Pedophilia, and Kidnapping

voilajean's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Homophobia, Violence, Body horror, Lesbophobia, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Child death, Death of parent, and Outing

Moderate: Racism, Antisemitism, Kidnapping, and Grief

Minor: Pedophilia

lostinworlds's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? N/A
• 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

Graphic: Death, Child death, Death of parent, Blood, Body horror, Violence, and Alcoholism

Moderate: Alcohol, Lesbophobia, Racial slurs, Homophobia, and Racism

Minor: Kidnapping and Suicidal thoughts

amandaakerman's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-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

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Infidelity, Grief, Gore, Death of parent, Cursing, Sexual assault, Racism, Pedophilia, Outing, Kidnapping, Violence, Child death, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Racial slurs, Lesbophobia, Blood, Alcoholism, Murder, and Addiction