Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

Burn Our Bodies Down by Rory Power

7 reviews

fanboyriot's review

dark emotional mysterious sad 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? No

4.0

Read For:

Small Town

Creepy Vibes

Family Secrets

Mommy Issues

Supernatural Elements

Margot grew up with her mom reminding her it was them against the world; they didn’t need anyone else.  Growing up in an emotionally unstable and abusive household she looks for other family only to find her grandmother's number.  Looking for answers and a link to the comforting family she craved she sneaks away to visit a grandmother she had never met.  The small town isn’t what she expected and the answers she gets are far from comforting.  Maybe it would have been better if she never went to begin with.

This book still has me questioning what I just read.  I have so many questions about the last few chapters.  I read this in a buddy read and we both seemed to have the same questions only to get to the end and never learn the answers to them.

I really did enjoy this book though.  The writing style of the majority of this book was so good, that it was intriguing and entertaining.  The author did such an amazing job with the setting of this book, bringing in the creepy vibes of a small town and unknown family secrets that left me wanting to read the next chapter.  However, it kinda lost me with most of the supernatural elements, I think the idea could have been better if it wasn't such an open-ended/rushed ending.  I’ve noticed this with this author's work before so maybe it's just her writing style or something.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ (4/5)

Release Date: 07, July 2020

POV: First Person

Spice: n/a

Rep: Lesbian (MC)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Mental illness, Blood, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Confinement, Gore, Medical content, Murder, Abandonment, Body horror, Cursing, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Abortion, Child death, Gun violence, Pregnancy, and Infertility

grrrlbrarian's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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? It's complicated

3.0

I almost hit DNF about halfway through and kind of wish I had. Margot as a narrator is so melodramatic about everything, it made it difficult to care about anything in the story. The audiobook narrator was also giving it 100% on the emotional scale at all times, which again just felt like too much. I enjoyed the premise and the building tension through the story, as well as the lush and sometimes disturbing descriptions. The ending just felt like it belonged to a different story, there were too many loose ends and questions still remaining for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Blood, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Murder, Body horror, Death, and Vomit

Moderate: Pregnancy, Violence, Gun violence, and Abandonment

Minor: Abortion and Confinement

random19379's review

emotional mysterious sad fast-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Murder, Abortion, Child death, Body horror, Torture, Confinement, Vomit, and Violence

brookey8888's review

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

3.25

This was weird. Like it was ok at first and it did get interesting, but I didn’t love how went. I also wish they made this scarier or more unsettling. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Blood, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Child death, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Violence, and Vomit

paracosim's review

dark mysterious sad 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Violence, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Confinement, Terminal illness, Pregnancy, and Murder

Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Gun violence, and Medical content

claredragonfly's review

dark emotional tense fast-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Emotional abuse, and Murder

Moderate: Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Gun violence, and Violence

Minor: Abortion

iviarelle's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• 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

I think most good books aren't good because they do something totally new, they're good because they take the established tropes of a format and they fill in the spaces and details in interesting ways. That's what this book does. It's a horror-mystery-thriller about family, and it's such a slow burn (pun intended) that some may find it intolerable. The plot beats are predictable, and the characters thinly developed. And yet, it does a lot of little things that speak deeply to me.

Which is to say, I loved it. As I was reading, I was a little let down that it wasn't more like Wilder Girls, which wasn't fair to this book or to Power. But now that I've finished, the longer I think about it, the more I prefer Burn Our Bodies Down. It's a story I'll be thinking about in off-moments for a long time.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Body horror, Gore, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Child death, Child abuse, and Confinement