Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

Hell House by Richard Matheson

11 reviews

mechtimber's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense slow-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? It's complicated

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Torture, Infidelity, Suicide attempt, Emotional abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Sexual content, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual violence, Physical abuse, Rape, and Sexual assault

Minor: Cultural appropriation and Lesbophobia

jzupp's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful tense fast-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual violence, Physical abuse, Animal death, Suicide, Sexual content, and Mental illness

Minor: Cannibalism, Confinement, Gore, Alcoholism, and Death

mollymisek's review

challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Although there were some genuinely frightening parts of this book and a few fun plot twists, Hell House was a strange blend of horny scenes and cheesy dialogue. Some of it can be chalked up to the 70s commercial horror writing style, but this really wasn’t for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Death, Sexual violence, Body horror, Blood, Murder, Sexual content, Gore, Physical abuse, Rape, and Violence

Moderate: Animal death and Misogyny

Minor: Alcohol and Cannibalism

aparker89's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Self harm, Alcohol, Animal death, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Confinement, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide attempt, Torture, Suicide, Classism, Death, Lesbophobia, Medical trauma, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Blood, Murder, and Rape

louiepotterbook's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious 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? It's complicated

0.5

This book was absolutely disgusting and feels like a gross guys wet dream

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Self harm, Suicide, Cannibalism, Cursing, Death, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Homophobia, Misogyny, Murder, Alcohol, Body horror, Lesbophobia, Rape, Sexism, Gore, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Suicide attempt, Sexual content, Vomit, and Torture

_terah_hansen_'s review against another edition

dark medium-paced

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

2.5

I have read many books with disturbing themes and plenty of gore and even those things can't compare to how disgusted I felt when reading the last 100 pages of this book. And not the good kind of disgust that makes a horror book great. I have never read a book that made me gag so much. Just ew.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence, Gore, Rape, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Suicide, Cannibalism, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, and Torture

childofmongreldogs's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Took me a bit to think about how I feel about this one, but I have to say that I don't think I particularly liked it. 

The writing was good. I love Richard Matheson's short fiction so it wasn't a problem with the actual quality of the prose itself which has me feeling a certain kind of way about this novel. I will also say that the actual storyline itself was good as well. The twists and turns kept me on the edge of my seat. This feels like the definition of a genre. The ultimate kind of haunted house story.

The way I was on edge throughout the story was next level. Not really terrifying but I think that a lot of the tension was well done. I think that Matheson was an absolutely phenomenal writer.

I just can't jive with horror novels from this era, I think. There's too much that is bad writing to me because it fundamentally misunderstands certain people. I know that that is a controversial opinion to have: I don't like this novel because it's depiction of women is bad and it's depiction of the LGBT group is bad and it's depiction of people other than white straight men is bad, but it is what it is.

There's always a lot of handwringing and excuses for it being a different time so having an indigenous man's spirit talk like a cave man, a possible lesbian be a lesbian because she was sexually molested, and have women be generally overly emotional and easy to control (among other things like in other novels) is just something we have to forgive, just a quirk of the time, instead of being seen as a legitimate problem in the writing.

Is this the worst offender of these issues? Probably not. I'm currently reading one that's even worse, really, from a fundamental level. The problem though is that being slightly better or on the lighter end of awful for the time period isn't enough for me to forgive that form of writing. I think there's a place for making things uncomfortable for the reader, but it was lazy even then to make it uncomfortable for women by simply filling the story with violent rape of the female characters.

I can see that there's some aspects of this novel that are really good and interesting. It doesn't make up for the "problematic" nature of the novel in other ways for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Colonisation, Incest, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Suicide, Body horror, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Murder, Rape, Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Gore, Homophobia, Biphobia, Lesbophobia, Sexism, Torture, and Violence

Minor: Animal death, Blood, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Gore, Grief, Homophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Cannibalism, Incest, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Body horror, Infidelity, Sexual content, Child death, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual harassment, Addiction, Colonisation, Drug abuse, and Murder

zeynothekivircik's review against another edition

challenging dark 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

1.5

It's not horror, there is nothing scary in it. The bigotry is scarier than the actual horror elements. Quite unreadable by 2022 standards but might have been decent back when it was first released. (Also what is the obsession with nipples???) The ending is very, and I mean very unsatisfactory. Once again adding that this book is more focused on fetishising and stereotyping its characters than the horror itself. Avoid this if SA topics, homophobia, misogyny and excessive mention of genitalia is triggering to you.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Self harm, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Alcohol, Sexism, Violence, Torture, Transphobia, Outing, Lesbophobia, Gore, Alcoholism, Homophobia, Misogyny, Rape, Physical abuse, Body horror, Blood, Biphobia, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Sexual violence, Mental illness, Death, and Addiction

dylpickles's review against another edition

challenging dark slow-paced

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

1.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Sexual assault, Lesbophobia, Homophobia, Sexual content, Body horror, Rape, Violence, and Self harm

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal death, Blood, Infertility, Misogyny, Murder, Death, Physical abuse, Sexism, and Alcohol

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, Stalking, Ableism, Cannibalism, Child death, Confinement, Cultural appropriation, Drug use, Drug abuse, Incest, Abortion, Infidelity, and Pedophilia

megpadams's review against another edition

1.75

It had some okay moments but on the whole it was just bad. Torture  porn wrapped up in a haunted house story. I heard there was a good twist but if there was I didn’t find it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Sexism, Misogyny, Murder, Rape, Torture, Suicide, Self harm, Physical abuse, Outing, Lesbophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Homophobia, and Gore