Reviews tagging 'Colonisation'

Pet Sematary by Stephen King

10 reviews

emimcmanis's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Medical content, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Car accident, Medical trauma, Sexual content, Chronic illness, Gore, Grief, and Murder

Moderate: Colonisation, Child abuse, Infidelity, Alcohol, and Genocide

Minor: Cannibalism and Excrement

corpseuscollision's review

dark mysterious 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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, Gore, Child death, Murder, and Blood

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail and Cursing

Minor: Sexual content, Alcohol, Cannibalism, Colonisation, and Drug use

itsjustgrumpy's review

challenging dark mysterious 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

2.0

The concept of the Wendigo and the 'sematary' is great... but the slow and laboured execution and anticlimactic ending really soured this book for me. I had to listen at x1.5 to actually finish it. Meh.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Injury/Injury detail, Vomit, Violence, Body horror, Death, Death of parent, Medical content, Grief, and Gore

Moderate: Colonisation

Minor: Alcohol

drybay's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

Horror hasn't been my genre, but this book might have changed that. The horror setting was just a place to handle the themes of loss and grief which was done beautifully. Also the slowly built suspence was great. A really good book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Animal death, Grief, Blood, Child death, and Murder

Moderate: Medical content and Colonisation

amandas_bookshelf's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Animal death, Grief, Child death, Terminal illness, Torture, Blood, Classism, Colonisation, Death, Cursing, Murder, Gore, and Violence

Moderate: Infidelity

Minor: Domestic abuse

tifftastic87's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad

• 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

"I don't wanna be buried in a pet sematary,
I don't want to live my life again."
-The Ramones

Louis Creed has moved his family from Chicago to Maine for a job. The house is idyllic with one exception, the road out front is a throughway for very large tanker trucks. When Louis's daughter's cat, Church, is hit by one of these trucks, the neighbor, Jud, shows Louis what to do. They bury Church in the real pet cemetery, a place where the dead don't stay dead. Church comes back not quite right, but he's definitely back. So, when Louis's 2 year old son gets hit by a different truck, Louis does the unthinkable.

I first read this book back in high school and I remember finishing it and being terrified to be home alone. This time around it was just as eerie, but 20 years has given me some perspective. The trope of the "ancient Indian burial ground" is definitely outdated and a little more than gross as is the use of a Wendigo. But the imagery of everything is still spooky.

I really liked Jud and the relationship he had with Louis. It is always nice to see wholesome relationships between men and I feel like King always does a good job at that. The same with the relationship with the other doctors at the University.

There's a lot of good here, but there is a lot of cringe too. Oh, god the bathtub scene. I forgot it was in this book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Sexual content, Cultural appropriation, Confinement, Grief, Medical content, Murder, Terminal illness, Medical trauma, and Blood

Moderate: Colonisation, Alcohol, and Racism

Minor: Antisemitism

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.

aleesquer's review

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Car accident, Child death, Death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, Murder, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Blood, Alcohol, Antisemitism, Cannibalism, Chronic illness, Ableism, and Colonisation

caylamaureen's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Holy smokes! I’ve been a King fan for quite some time now, but I was scared to pick this one up, I’m not gonna lie… especially after King himself said that he thought he had finally “gone too far and threw it in a drawer with no intent to publish I love a good thriller but with a name and a preface like that I thought it would be too gruesome for me.  But I have to say that King really writes in a way that no other writer does anymore and if more people could stomach these complicated topics, we’d be studying them in school hands down. The way he uses metaphors and forces us to think about the world we live in is absolutely unreal and I’m not tired of it yet! 

Okay, Pet Sematery has very little blood and gore and jump scares compared to other King novels and I was left thinking “would I even call this ‘horror?’“ To me it felt more like tragedy. Kind of like a bit of a haunted tragedy? I’m not sure… what it really, actually is at its core is thought-provoking and psychological. More than any other book I’ve ever read, you are going to be pushed right up against the glass to the questions of afterlife, the worst kinds of childhood trauma, and the complex interwoven effects of death in the family. It’s absolutely astounding to me how simply King was able to make me question everything I think I know about death (or don’t know about it) and not only that but FORCE me to think about it. Luckily for me, I love nothing more than to be forced to think about life’s tough questions and then have something to on overthinking about endlessly. So if the hard topics aren’t your thing (or are triggering!! Read the trigger warnings!!) and inevitable haunting tragedy isn’t your thing, you won’t like this book. But it is undoubtedly a literary masterpiece that I can’t stop thinking about!! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Murder, Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Medical trauma, Suicidal thoughts, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Child death, Colonisation, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Funerals, family death, pet death, grave digging, grave robbing

becca_w_'s review

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Ableism, Grief, Infidelity, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Blood, Chronic illness, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Cursing, Drug use, Animal death, Child death, Death of parent, Murder, Sexual content, Vomit, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Colonisation, and Addiction

Minor: Gun violence, Alcoholism, Confinement, Cancer, Car accident, Genocide, Cannibalism, Forced institutionalization, Kidnapping, Sexism, and War