Reviews tagging 'Torture'

Gothikana by RuNyx

6 reviews

kristanjenkins's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

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wii3rdo's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-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? It's complicated

5.0

the way my body and mind reacted to the paranoid, suspenseful, and tense moments in this book needs to be STUDIED! it doesn’t help that i finished reading the last 40% after midnight when my house was dead silent and dark...but we’ll gloss over that detail for now 😅

this book exceeded my expectations for how much i’d love it. if the exterior didn’t do it for me, the descriptions and the way the author made me feel exactly what the characters felt, THAT DID IT! 🙂‍↕️ everything was so vivid i felt like i could see exactly what they wanted me to see down to the specks of dust in the library. Y’ALL AS CREEPY AS VERENMORE IS, I FUCKING LOVE IT!

i will say that i have a few unanswered questions and i explained the entire book to my friend on the phone the night after i finished, and not only does he want to read it, but he has the same questions i do.

i was suspicious of everyone EXCEPT who i needed to be suspicious of. even anticipating a twist, i NEVER would’ve guessed the story’s outcome. when i tell you i flipped this book closed and looked around so many times, i felt like i was being watched 😭 as good as it was, i will say, the first half of the book felt like a drag. with how detailed everything was, in some places, it felt like there was too much emphasis on the scenery and otherwise minor details. the book was hard to put down, but in some places it made me question “is this relevant?” but i still loved it!

and i’ll say this and be done: PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF SANITY, LET THERE BE A CONTINUATION OF THIS STORY BECAUSE I HAVE SOME MAJOR QUESTIONS THAT I FEEL LIKE ONLY ANOTHER STORY COULD ANSWER 😭
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pastelbread's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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btwnprintedpgs's review against another edition

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

3.0

The mystery in this book kept me interested, but the twist wasn't for me. One part surprised me, but the other part seemed reductive and trite.

As a whole, didn't love the romance, but that's because it's very lusty and not much "get to know you" happened. The demi in me just couldn't get on board with it all. The sexy parts seemed unrealistic at times too, but that's a whole other conversation. Also, I felt like there were just a lot of questions I never got answers to, and while the characters might've been fine with it, I wanted to know as it felt like a huge part of the mystery of it all.

In the end, I was interested throughout, but a lot of it was just a miss for me as things came to light. Great for gothic girlies who love when the LI calls the MC a "good girl" and enjoys a little bit of a psychological/paranormal thriller. I am not that type of girly.

Rep: Parent with schizophrenia and dementia

TW: blood, suicide, murder, death, torture, fire, sexual content, kidnapping; mentions abandonment, death of a parent, bullying 
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m_winnike's review against another edition

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slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No
I got an ARC for this book. It was advertised as dark academia with some romance and a bit of a murder mystery plot throw in. This is a goddamn lie and I’m gonna fight whoever at Bramble is responsible for this absolute garbage fire of a book being published. There is almost no plot until over 75% of the way through, exactly zero of the characters have any semblance of a personality, the romantic couple had no chemistry but everyone around them constantly talked about how much fiery chemistry they had(bitch where?), the “plot twist” in the last chapters is quite literally one of the dumbest, and most convoluted things I’ve ever read in my life and somehow included surprise incest. I would not recommend this book to my bitterest of enemies let alone any of my book reading friends. To any fans of this book, which I cannot possibly believe actually exist, I need to know who hurt y’all that this is what you think is good. I didn’t think it could get worse after I read Zodiac Academy last year but this book sure proved me wrong. 
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katvou's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

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