Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

Les Somnambules by Chuck Wendig

9 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

marleens's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I got this book as a gift for Christmas 2019, so right before COVID kicked off. In the years after I didn’t dare read it, as I was avoiding all “pandemicky” books, fearing they would hit too close to home. And now that I’ve finally read it, I’m glad I waited until I felt up for it. Obviously the pandemic in this book gets way worse than COVID ever did, but especially the way people respond to it felt eerily real. 
It’s a chunker and it took me weeks to work my way through, but I loved every step of the way along the plot. Great writing and great characters, and I loved the switching between multiple POVs. Also really liked the bits at the start of the chapters giving little insights into what was being talked about online or in the media. The story end was satisfying to me and could have easily been a standalone, but apparently there is a sequel which I will for sure be reading. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, Gun violence, Body horror, Confinement, Dementia, Rape, Racism, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Religious bigotry

amandaklap's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

1.75

This book felt soooo long, so LONG!  It is a very political book - to the point of propaganda in it’s polarized splitting of humanity.  The storyline was still intriguing, but I’m certain the author could have cut out a third of the book without any loss. It is unlikely I will pick up the sequel.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Mental illness, Xenophobia, Murder, Racial slurs, Gun violence, Homophobia, and Violence

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

sydbap's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Misogyny, Murder, Rape, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Racism, Terminal illness, Death, Mental illness, Violence, Blood, Dementia, Homophobia, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Abandonment

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

frozencusser's review against another edition

Anal rape with gun oil in a plot device that has nothing to do with the sci-fi part of it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Torture, Sexual assault, Kidnapping, Violence, Body horror, and Physical abuse

jenny_d's review against another edition

dark sad tense slow-paced

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

1.75

Man... this book could have been a LOT shorter. Lots of repetitive phrases. A few characters that could have been entirely left out, like Pete, without changing the story at all.

I feel like the rape scene in the bunker could have been a fade-to-black kind of thing instead.

There were parts of the story that were pretty good, but by the time I was two thirds of the way through I had lost a lot of interest in the story. It felt like a slog after that. Plus there were so many things about it that were way too squicky for me .

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Cursing, Death, Dementia, Gun violence, Mental illness, Murder, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Violence, Vomit, and Xenophobia

Minor: Adult/minor relationship