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spineofthesaurus's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
4.75
Graphic: Death, Self harm, Violence, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Drug use, Gore, Alcohol, Grief, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, and Torture
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Gaslighting, Animal death, Medical trauma, Infidelity, and Ableism
Minor: Incest and Cannibalism
hazelsnoot's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Graphic: Body horror, Violence, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, and Medical content
Moderate: Confinement, Animal death, Blood, Child death, Death, and Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Antisemitism, Ableism, Incest, Sexual content, and Homophobia
urs's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Graphic: Body horror, Death, and Gore
Moderate: Child death, Animal death, and Ableism
Minor: Medical trauma, Drug use, Gun violence, Toxic relationship, and Infidelity
booksthatburn's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
I love the friendship between Simon and Kara. It begins with banter developed by two people who saw each other casually in public, then slowly was permeated by the strange intimacy of sharing the same secret terrors. The world-building is great, I like the contrast between the museum and the willow world. Spending so much time in the museum before the bizarre events begin helps make the museum and its strangeness feel cozy and safe. The willow world hangs in this balance that drives terror both in what is actually shown and what its existence implies. I care about content warnings and I'm genuinely impressed by how creepy this was with so little that required specific warnings. It builds horror in the gap between what's expected and what actually happens, and while that's by no means new in horror, it's done with great care and precision so that I could never quite relax when it was quiet. The creepiness builds slowly, with a few specific moments that were terrifying. That time in between where things are a bit off but nothing extremely traumatizing is happening are so essential to the difference between reading a story about someone having a very bad time, and having a book make me so stressed that I have a bad time too.
It's masterfully written so that guessing the cause early does nothing to stop the horror and actually makes the anticipation even more stressful. So much of what I loved in its little details would be spoilers to describe, but suffice it to say that the explanations about the nature of the monsters and the cause of the strangeness helped my curiosity but maintained my worries for the characters. I loved this, and I'm adding T. Kingfisher to a small but growing list of authors that make me feel safe while reading horror, a genre that until recently I've had a hard time getting into.
Moderate: Toxic relationship, Medical content, Gore, Body horror, Violence, and Death
Minor: Ableism and Animal death
yuna's review
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Pacing was mostly good, though it bogged down a little for me when Kara and Simon were wandering around from bunker to bunker. Picked up again once they found the bus and stayed strong til the end.
Moderate: Gore
Minor: Ableism