Reviews tagging 'Torture'

Caraval by Stephanie Garber

36 reviews

jillreads55's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

My absolute favorite book! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Torture

Minor: Death of parent

ashboutiette's review against another edition

adventurous challenging 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? N/A

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Blood, Domestic abuse, Suicide attempt, Violence, Murder, Physical abuse, Suicide, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Violence, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Abandonment, Death, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Murder, and Suicidal thoughts

neliadiedenise's review against another edition

challenging emotional mysterious tense fast-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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Medical content, Suicide, Injury/Injury detail, Domestic abuse, Blood, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Violence, Torture, Sexual harassment, Physical abuse, and Murder

druzyquartz's review against another edition

adventurous challenging funny hopeful mysterious fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Child abuse, Death, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Torture and Abandonment

nclausel25's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Murder, Gore, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Abandonment, Sexual content, Blood, Suicide, and Torture

chapkip's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious fast-paced

• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

3.5

I think I wanted to like this book more than I actually found myself enjoying it. I’m intrigued by the idea of Caraval and some of the descriptive writing was truly captivating but the characters felt underdeveloped. Both the writing style and character development was distinctly juvenile, which I can excuse in a YA novel, but some of the themes leaned more adult at times and that made me wish for a bit more maturity overall. I’d be very interested to read if Garber ever tries her hand at New Adult fiction. I’m glad to have finally read this title though! I may find myself picking up the next in the series if I need something whimsical and easy to read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse and Suicide

Moderate: Death and Torture

bookclubi's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and Torture

cas_reads_anything's review against another edition

mysterious slow-paced

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

2.75

This felt like if a CW teen show had one fever dream of a season and then ended with a happy ended & minimal character growth.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Suicide

Moderate: Blood

Minor: Abandonment, Torture, Gaslighting, Kidnapping, and Sexual violence

savvyrosereads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-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

4.0

Rating: 4/5 stars

Scarlett and her sister Tella escape their abusive father and plunge into the magical game of Caraval…but when Tella goes missing, Scarlett soon learns everything is not as it seems.

This book took me AGES to read for reasons that are not remotely its fault, so the buddy read very much left me behind (and I can’t blame them). That said, I really enjoyed this one and had a great time discussing it once I was finally able to do so!

The world building here is particularly fun to me—the entire setting felt super trippy and made my brain hurt a bit, but in a good way. This is more complex (and a bit darker) than YA sometimes skews, but I enjoyed both of those things!

A lot of the folks in my buddy read were frustrated by the ending and/or by the character of Tella, but I actually loved both. I’m excited to see where this trilogy goes next (as of this posting I’ve already finished and really enjoyed Legendary but have Finale left to go)!

CW: Kidnapping; physical and emotional abuse; blood/violence/death; suicide 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Domestic abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, Death, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, and Violence

Moderate: Murder

Minor: Torture

crgrace's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful mysterious tense fast-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Bullying, Child abuse, Gaslighting, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Death, and Murder

Minor: Blood and Torture