Reviews tagging 'War'

Les Somnambules by Chuck Wendig

5 reviews

thecrimsoncorsair's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny informative 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? Yes

4.5

Other than the fact that Wendig absolutely loves the word canoodle far too much, and needlessly made this book longer than was necessary. It really was a fantastic book. I couldn't stop listening to it. Blew through the whole thing in a few days. I had to know what was going on with the big mystery surrounding the white mask disease. And it sadly ended pretty much how I figured it would. Which wasn't very surprising at all. Pretty cliche ending, but I am excited to start on the sequel. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Gaslighting, Police brutality, Rape, Sexism, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Racial slurs, Terminal illness, Cannibalism, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Ableism, Bullying, Blood, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Pandemic/Epidemic, Confinement, Grief, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, Violence, Xenophobia, Death, Dementia, Gun violence, Hate crime, Body shaming, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Alcoholism, Classism, Cursing, Gore, Kidnapping, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Drug use, Racism, War, Alcohol, Excrement, Panic attacks/disorders, Torture, Body horror, Child death, Emotional abuse, and Infidelity

Minor: Cancer

yruss972's review against another edition

dark slow-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? Yes

2.0

Too dark, dystopian, and violent for me.
12 monkeys meets The Walking Dead meets The 100

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual content, Suicide, Terminal illness, War, Drug abuse, Gore, Kidnapping, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, Sexual violence, Slavery, Vomit, Sexual assault, Mental illness, Medical content, Racism, Hate crime, Abandonment, Bullying, Confinement, Cursing, Grief, Violence, Death, Rape, Religious bigotry, Suicidal thoughts, Gun violence, Torture, Physical abuse, and Racial slurs

kayahcherie's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

Starting with the good: the plot development, the characters, the story in and of itself—all of that was so, so good. A real good apocalyptic, pandemic-meets-climate-change-and-current-political-realities page turner. 

However, the dialogue throughout was so cringey. I would get it if it were stylistic to a specific character but it wasn’t. And I absolutely hated the ending (literally just the last four or five pages. Like. Seriously?????).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Gun violence, Blood, War, Violence, and Rape

Moderate: Addiction and Suicide

rely's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I loved the plot. I liked mist if the characters but Shana drove me nuts. She took me out of the story. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Homophobia, Sexual assault, Violence, War, Antisemitism, Death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Islamophobia, Rape, Religious bigotry, Xenophobia, Classism, Cursing, Misogyny, Racism, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Physical abuse, and Kidnapping

buck50's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.5

There’s a really fantastic story here. Unfortunately it’s buried under some really awful and ultimately pointless subplots. The core medical mystery and characters are really written- it’s tense, it’s weird, you can feel the characters grasping at straws to figure out what is happening. 

BUT: there’s an entire hackneyed subplot about a pastor and his family, and a violent militia and its leader and its just… awful. The story grinds to a halt every time Matthew and Ozark are the subject. They really don’t add anything and Mathew the character is a cliche, his story arc is a cliche and he’s just 100% unlikeable. Ozark is supposedly a racist Hoosier drug dealer but clearly the author has never been to Indiana. His dialogue is also cliche, his violence utterly gratuitous- do we really need

a graphic description of Ozark raping Mathew?

or honestly any of the other violence? It’s not like I’m against reading about violence it’s more that, we get it- Ozark and his crew are violent people. We don’t need more descriptions.

The ending is… meh. Because it’s been over complicated with a huge racist militia subplot the ending is just overly complicated and over wrought.

We suddenly learn things at the very end of the book that were mentioned in passing very early in the book, and we are meant to feel like this is exposition that changes everything. 

A good editor could have cut this in half and turned it into one really good medical horror story and one cliche preacher and evil story. But instead what you get is an imitation of Steven king without the charm.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Physical abuse, Misogyny, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Gore, Body horror, Sexual assault, Racial slurs, War, Suicide attempt, Medical trauma, Medical content, and Kidnapping