Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

The Pallbearers Club by Paul Tremblay

12 reviews

lancemama's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Chronic illness, Cursing, Toxic relationship, Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Toxic friendship, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gaslighting, Medical content, Mental illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicidal thoughts, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Death, Self harm, Abandonment, Medical trauma, Grief, Bullying, and Terminal illness

alexisgarcia's review against another edition

mysterious reflective tense slow-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

1.0

i am incredibly disappointed to say that i absolutely hated this. i thought the characters were unbearably miserable, the plot was lack luster, the dialogue was unrealistic and cringey, and the ending was disappointing. i did not expect to dislike this even close to as much as i did. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Eating disorder, Medical content, Mental illness, Terminal illness, Toxic friendship, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Death of parent, Alcoholism, Drug use, Drug abuse, Grief, and Medical trauma

james1star's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

2.5

This book was… okayish I guess. I’m not too sure on how to feel about it but on the whole I didn’t particularly like it very much. At it’s core is a memoir written by Art Barbra called The Pallbearers Club which he is writing later in his life (around 40-ish I think but cannot remember) detailing his life from teenage years during the 80s in New England until now (for him). Art is a loner and deals with scoliosis and generally a below average person in his town and school. He comes up with the idea of starting a pallbearers club to attend funerals of relatively unknown people and it’s here he meets our other mc Mercy who is ‘cool’ but also a weird character as she takes Polaroid pictures of the corpses. I did like the friendship between them and parts of the 80s era but like the whole book my interest just dropped off as it developed. There’s a vampiric horror element to the story and this is what Mercy believes Art is misremembering and misrepresenting in his ‘memoir’ so she writes notes in the margins and at the end of each chapter on how to improve the book. 

It was a fine and somewhat intriguing book but it was quite a bore in all honesty. There really isn’t much to the characters or storyline that kept me wanting more. In the acknowledgments, Tremblay says he is quite like Art and I do see this because a lot of this book I don’t think would appeal to that many people, it did feel quite personal and I just wasn’t interested at all about heavy mental and all these failed bands. The horror elements were again alright but wasn’t anything special, just a lot of the same thing rehashed in some way. I took a while to get into the book, then it got a bit more interesting but it just fell flat again. My favourite part was probably just the general idea of it with a ‘memoir’ and it’s edits but that’s about it. 

Final note: the fact Art put up 123 flyers is just so horrible I can’t, just please no don’t do this to me! At least make it 120 or 125 but not 123 - ewwww!!! Also there are quite a few other irritating and cringe elements. For this I’ve decided to round down instead of up on Goodreads. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death

Minor: Death of parent, Alcohol, Eating disorder, Drug use, Cursing, and Cancer

kshertz's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

What a super cool interesting concept! The idea of someone writing a manuscript and someone else finding it and adding their notes about themselves in the book? Add in the supernatural? TWO unreliable narrators?! I loved it. You spend the whole books trying to find out what’s real and who’s telling the truth. I loved it. You don’t find out to the very end. And even then… you can’t be sure!

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Content Warnings

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Chronic illness, Drug use, Murder, Body horror, Drug abuse, Abandonment, and Death

daffodilcherry's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

I liked the concept of this book (a memoir where another person is editing/editorialising the events described via notation) more than I liked the actual plot/book itself. That being said, the book was able to ensnare me and keep my dutiful attention while I read it. The two main characters were complex, and purposefully unlikeable. I liked the more supernatural aspects of the story in the second half, but wish that they were a little more exciting. As far as horror moments, the book was more of a kind of drawn-out suspense than 'scary'. 
Wheelhouse items: unreliable narrator, conflicting narrators, meta narrative devices, toxic? friendships, 'is this supernatural or not?', punk music scene, psychological horror.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Toxic friendship, Death of parent, and Death

Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Bullying, Medical content, and Gaslighting

avidreaderandgeekgirl's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense 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? It's complicated

2.0

A boring mind f*ck. Is that a thing? Well, if not it is now! You've got 2 unreliable narrators, the male one is a dull teen boy then a generic white guy with scoliosis (which by the way they don't usually do surgery on until you're done growing) with an alcohol and drug problem, who then blames himself for everything bad that happens. 

I usually like books with odd formats but this one just didn't work. Mercy/Mary's commentary was the only part that kept me reading. But you still don't know what's real and what's not in the end. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Grief, Addiction, Toxic friendship, Suicidal thoughts, Mental illness, Chronic illness, Alcohol, and Alcoholism

Moderate: Death of parent and Terminal illness

Minor: Body shaming and Bullying

mandkips's review

dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Addiction, and Death of parent

Moderate: Grief, Cancer, Alcohol, and Drug use

Minor: Cancer, Drug abuse, and Bullying

leanne_miron's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Grief, Toxic friendship, Chronic illness, Medical content, Terminal illness, and Death

Moderate: Gore, Bullying, and Death of parent

Minor: Alcohol, Cannibalism, and Drug use

sylvestra's review against another edition

dark emotional funny slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Chronic illness

Moderate: Alcohol, Drug use, and Grief

goodgollymissmollee's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

1.0

This book was not what I expected it to be and it was not for me. I loved the format, super cool and different, and the few pages of horror did scare me a bit. However, there weren’t very many of them and the book as a whole was extremely different from what I thought it was going to be.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Body horror, Death of parent, Cancer, Drug use, Drug abuse, Mental illness, Gaslighting, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, and Grief

Moderate: Toxic friendship