Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

320 reviews

cre8withcait's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Body horror, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Murder, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

r0r0's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

Start was really slow and disorganised, should have been edited to be chronological rather than jumping. Ending was really good, saved the book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Blood, Excrement, Medical content, Murder, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

lauskireads's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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? Yes

4.5

Amazing book and descriptions but the violent scenes sometimes felt like they were written for shock factor rather than adding to the story. I really loved the plot and the build up but it felt slightly rushed by the end. Overall though, I was totally immersed and couldn’t wait to keep coming back to the world, I fell in love with Alex and Dawes’ friendship and the world building was great. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, and Violence

sarahschuster's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The writing style was a little difficult for me (long sentences with lots of metaphors and descriptive words, vocabulary and references that I had to look up). But the characters were interesting and the plot was so compelling and well fleshed out that I felt the book still deserved 5 stars. 

I had an inkling early on that Belbalm was evil and would be the big twist at the end of the book but I didn’t come close to predicting the truth.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Drug abuse, Physical abuse, Rape, and Toxic relationship

kirnet's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

4.0

MAJOR TWs for SA, CSA, Assault under the influence, other sexual violence, gore, abuse. All of it, really. 

I really enjoyed the prose in this, and I ended up really loving Alex's character. I found her really compelling and was happy to follow her thoughts and actions. I love how flawed she is, as well as how she struggles to cope with it. Her relationships with the other characters are also great, mainly Dawes and North. She has a lot of on page chemistry with everyone that keeps things flowing. The story is interesting (though I did predict every twist), and the world building was interesting, but my main gripe with this book was the pacing. A lot of people mention not being invested in the book until very far in, and while I didn't have that exact problem, I did find a lot of the info dumps pretty grating. The book also spends a lot of time jumping back to the past, mostly to set up Darlington's character, or to explain parts of Alex's tragic backstory. In my opinion they happened too often and were too indulgent, really taking me out of the current storyline and investigation. I wonder if it would have been better to have made this book the second in the series, to have the first one actually show Alex and Darlington's growing relationship and ending with the cliffhanger of

Darlington getting yoinked to hell

rather than flashing back and expositing. As it stands there's too little Darlington for me to actually care about him as a character and too much Darlington for me to not get annoyed at his interruptions to the story, even if he seems like a fine character. Still, I'm excited to see where this story goes and I plan on picking up the next one.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

kenziekat's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Murder

Minor: Physical abuse and Injury/Injury detail

kileyjojo's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Content Warning: This book depicts several sexual assault scenes in detail.

This was a fun read. It was a little difficult to get into in the beginning but the middle to end was super suspenseful and interesting. The ending felt like it fumbled the ball just a bit but overall I enjoyed the book. It takes a while to get into it but the payoff is worth it. If you like realistic fantasy and the paranormal, this is the read. 

In terms of the content warning, a lot of the SA scenes feel very rushed and used only for shock value. In the moment, they are relevant but they seem to just disappear and never have any other message behind them when all is said and done. They are all very shocking and it makes it very difficult to want to continue the read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Excrement, Grief, Murder, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship

dearhaleynicole's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny 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? Yes

4.0

Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Dropping out of high school early, she goes down a shady path filled with dealers, bad men & dead-end jobs. In a seemingly crazy twist of events, she ends up the sole survivor of a gruesome, unsolved multi-homicide. While recovering in the hospital, she is offered the chance to completely 180 her life if she lends her help with something… magical?

I don’t know why it has taken me so long to read this book truly. It has been on my tbr for FAR too long 👀 Once I got into the story, I absolutely ate up Leigh Bardugo’s writing! Her characters + their backstories and how we find out those backstories through the progression of the book had me gasping for breath it felt like every ten minutes. So many twists and turns in this one. Overall, I really liked reading Ninth House and plan to pick up Hell Bent (the sequel) soon to hopefully get some more Darlington. we need more Darlington.

What I loved:

♡ ba anti-heroine
♡ the audiobook was brilliant
♡ gothic uni setting
♡ well-painted characters
♡ plot twists for days
♡ magical houses + secret societies
♡ unrelenting tension
♡ darlington. 🫶🏻
♡ “there were always excuses for why girls died”

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, and Murder

Moderate: Drug abuse, Drug use, and Physical abuse

halefa's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective sad 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

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

paula357's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Vomit, and Murder