Reviews tagging 'Racial slurs'

Pet Sematary by Stephen King

6 reviews

mlovesbooks's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

My first official Stephen King read did not disappoint.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Murder, Child abuse, and Child death

Moderate: Gaslighting and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Racism and Racial slurs

bomenvernietiger's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

This isn't a book it's a depression machine. Jesus Christ Stephen. Incredible

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Classism, Grief, Gun violence, Murder, Antisemitism, Blood, Body horror, Suicide, Ableism, Animal cruelty, Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Alcohol, Child abuse, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, Addiction, Violence, Alcoholism, Cannibalism, Car accident, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, Chronic illness, Medical content, Terminal illness, and Vomit

Moderate: Infidelity

Louis says some ableist shit. You could interpret this as the author agreeing with that stuff, but since Louis is an asshole in other portions of the book too, I think it's just a symptom of the assholery.

archaicgambit's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

The only Stephen King book I’ve ever read. Some passages were truly gripping. Others were clumsy and dated. There’s a lot of era-typical misogyny and racism in this. Found myself particularly fascinated by the airport scenes & other 80s references. The extended wizard of Oz symbolism was interesting too. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child death, Animal death, and Murder

Moderate: Racial slurs, Medical trauma, Ableism, and Racism

Minor: Vomit, Suicidal thoughts, Antisemitism, and Sexism

paulrichard's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad 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? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death and Child death

Moderate: Racial slurs and Terminal illness

chloseencounter's review

dark tense 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

3.0

Pet Semetery may be the scariest book by King I’ve read so far and it’s definitely the best one I’ve read since The Shining. I think often King’s novels are like the longest build up ever to the world’s saddest orgasm but I actually felt that the pay off was worth it in this novel. I’ll also say that this was some very strong character writing but despite that maybe only two characters were actually likable, though I do at least think the mental decline in Louis over time is articulated well. I was also slightly put off by the completely out of place sex scenes that added literally nothing to the story but King is nothing if not horny. Even though I love to complain about King’s books I really did enjoy this one and would actually recommend it to people especially if you’re new to King or horror in general. I still think it could’ve been edited so much shorter but for the most part it felt more evenly paced than other King novels and I wasn’t often bored. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Murder, Child death, Animal death, and Death

Moderate: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Death, Injury/Injury detail, Racial slurs, and Blood

Minor: Chronic illness, Racism, Terminal illness, Confinement, Medical content, Medical trauma, Violence, Grief, and Mental illness

asourceoffiction's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-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

5.0

I will be processing this book and that ending for days.

Firstly, the less you know about this story, the better! I had never seen the adaptations and I had no idea how incredibly rich this narrative was going to be. I also saw early on that, while this is one of King's scariest books, it isn't full of traditional horror tropes and jump scares. The horror comes from fear, from grief and from the anticipation of what the hell might happen next.

What I love about King's books is the writing; he can create entire worlds you can be completely immersed in. I felt everything Louis Creed and his family were feeling (including the increasing sense of dread as the book went on), and I fell in love with their messy, normal life. I also loved Jud, Louis's kindly, mysterious and occasionally creepy neighbour. But I could never tell where the evil was going to emerge; I just knew it was going to happen.

Half way through I decided that this wasn't a horror story, but more an examination of the effect tragedy and grief can have. By the end, I still believed all of that but I had also been proven very wrong; this is most definitely a horror. And it's an absolutely brilliant one.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Murder, Animal death, Violence, Racial slurs, Gore, and Death