Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling

28 reviews

maresuju's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, and Medical content

Moderate: Blood, Child death, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, and Death of parent

Minor: Drug use, Pregnancy, Confinement, Panic attacks/disorders, and Vomit

animafeline's review

challenging dark mysterious reflective 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Medical content, Mental illness, Murder, and Death

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Body horror, and Gore

Minor: Addiction, War, Fire/Fire injury, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Child death, and Drug use

smylieman's review

dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Medical trauma, Blood, Miscarriage, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, and Medical content

Moderate: Sexual content, Terminal illness, and Pregnancy

loujanae's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

A gothic horror? A gothic romance? A gothic anything should be dripping in atmosphere. It should be flooded with tension and a living, breathing setting. I should have felt dread from the escalating tension of the romance, the mystery, the occult. This didn't have anything in common with a gothic novel. It was all tell, no show. Characters showing up to info dump a plot, and disappearing when no longer relevant and useful to the author. Every chapter sat us down and explained more and more without actually saying anything of note. Overexplained, underdeveloped. I think I'm one of the few people who actually "understood"  what was going on in chapter zero, (if it can truly be understood at all, no shade at all to everyone who couldn't grasp what was going on, I don't blame you!) and that ending was still a confusing and convoluted mess. There were so many ideas here that were SO interesting. But there was absolutely zero follow through on those interesting ideas.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Drug use, Medical content, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Terminal illness, Gaslighting, Gore, Pregnancy, Death, Blood, and Body horror

Moderate: War and Death of parent

threeundertwopnw's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Child death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Abortion, and Self harm

alxjasper's review

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

A beautifully written gothic horror. Some plot points were prredictable but the sense of tension and horror was well maintained throughout.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gore, Medical trauma, Body horror, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Pregnancy

Minor: Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, War, Vomit, Violence, Self harm, and Gaslighting

accidentallyinspace's review

challenging 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? It's complicated

3.5

If you read these reviews, you'll see two kinds of people: the people who liked the first part, with the romance and light spooks, and the people who liked the second, with the horror. I am in the second camp, for full disclosure.

For the first 30% of this book, I assumed I wouldn't be finishing it, as the trappings of a traditional romance novel were more overt than I liked. I assumed the supernatural element would be little more than the elements in the original Haunting of Hill House, which (very slight spoilers for that) 

felt very lackluster in haunting details compared to more modern haunted house stories.

  However, partially through the book the supernatural aspect has the volume raised from a 3 to an 11, and the story begins to echo The Yellow Wallpaper combined with some body horror and a truly harrowing (if a tad long-winded) ritual experience. The ending leaves some questions unanswered, at least to my dense mind, and I'm not wholly convinced the whole thing wasn't just

an allegory for pregnancy and miscarriage. There's a strong theme of Jane doing the proper thing repeatedly, as a wife and host, and the concept of shame being something that dark forces feed on is made entirely explicit. Between all that, the ectopic pregnancy earlier in the book, and Jane growing what is ostensibly a magic tumor baby (seriously) while slowly unraveling in both body and mind while her husband is absent... I dunno, that makes sense to me.

. 

I'd recommend this if you've got a medium-strong stomach for handling gore and self-flagellation, and are okay walking away with a few "huh" moments towards the end. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Blood, Pregnancy, Medical content, and Self harm

saurahsaurus's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

I really enjoyed this book until about 4/5 of the way through, when it delved into

the details of Jane’s magic rituals and mathematical theories.

Until that point, the book thoroughly held my interest and the pacing felt well-suited to the plot. My interest really dipped during the 80-86% part of the book, but did gradually return after that.

The ending was layered, a bit surprising, and intriguing.

It wasn’t a true happy ending, but it was mostly hopeful.

I felt that the ending redeemed the book overall. The main characters and their relationship were compelling, and I found myself really rooting for them.  I especially loved that Jane’s autism is portrayed so lovingly and as the superpower that it is. There isn’t nearly enough autism representation in literature, and the horror genre is no exception, so Jane is a breath of fresh air. (Jane’s autism is alluded to—and not directly described, but the author confirmed this fact!)

I may not revisit this book, but I’d happily read more work from this author!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Gaslighting, Blood, Miscarriage, Gore, Body horror, Death, Medical content, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Confinement, Grief, Terminal illness, Self harm, Child death, Death of parent, and Drug use

Minor: Vomit, War, Forced institutionalization, Mental illness, Abandonment, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Pregnancy, Toxic relationship, Classism, and Sexual content

brenncocoa's review

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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: Blood, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Violence, Body horror, and Death

Moderate: Gaslighting, Vomit, and Abandonment

Minor: Animal death, Death of parent, Child death, Sexual content, and Pregnancy

lovesit1892's review

dark mysterious 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? It's complicated

3.0

This book started out strong for me with a unique take on the classic gothic horror storyline--mysterious new husband, creepy old house, etc.--but by the ending I was frustrated with the writing. I don't think I've ever read a book with such redundant writing; there was so much text on the page that was repetitive, vague, and really said nothing at all. By the last five chapters I was losing interest, to the point where I considered not even reading past

Chapter Zero

because it did nothing to further the storyline. 

The characters were not really that engaging, and as the storyline and writing devolved that left nothing interesting for me. I would still give it 3 stars because I liked this take on gothic horror, it wasn't just the typical ghost story but it definitely could have been better fleshed out. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Blood, Body horror, Pregnancy, Miscarriage, Drug use, Gaslighting, Medical content, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Drug use and Death

Minor: Vomit and Panic attacks/disorders