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honeywine's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
Graphic: Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Self harm, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Blood, Child death, Dysphoria, Grief, Torture, Murder, Death, Domestic abuse, Medical content, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Body horror, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Violence, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, Abandonment, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Toxic relationship
themaddbeanie's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- 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
0.5
Yeah, someone's mental illness is not your horror story. You can't just steal a real disorder and turn it into a "freak show" for others to gawk at. Disrespectful
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Torture, Abandonment, Child abuse, Grief, Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, and Physical abuse
Moderate: Addiction, Medical content, Confinement, Death, Animal cruelty, Child death, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Kidnapping, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Body shaming, Fatphobia, Gore, and Grief
Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Addiction, Body horror, and Vomit
I feel like this could potentially be very upsetting for people with certain mental illnesses or those who have experienced abuse.tspice24's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Graphic: Gore, Child abuse, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, Suicide attempt, Torture, Grief, and Mental illness
ekmook's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Grief, Gore, Mental illness, Animal cruelty, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, Medical content, Murder, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, and Stalking
katkinslee's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Gore, Self harm, Child abuse, Suicide attempt, Violence, Kidnapping, and Suicide
Moderate: Abandonment
ophielouise's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
Graphic: Suicide attempt, Torture, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
mgordon3118's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
Graphic: Abandonment, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, and Confinement
Moderate: Death of parent, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Torture, Vomit, and Violence
klitanightfuryreads's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
It was a rollercoaster that I didn’t want to end, I could easily read a second book about it. I thought I had it figured it out at first, then changed my mind, then everything was upside down and then everything made sense…
I may come back and write a more detailed reviewed later but right now I’m still processing and enjoying what happened…
Moderate: Abandonment, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, and Suicide
jerusha's review against another edition
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Kidnapping, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Suicide, and Violence
ceallaighsbooks's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
“Dissociative identity disorder may often be used as a horror device in fiction, but in my small experience it is quite the opposite. Those who survive, and live with it, are always striving towards the good.” (from the Afterword)
“’“Come into my web,” said the spider to the fly.’ You are supposed to sympathise with the fly, I think. But no one likes flies, really.”
“You were made from darkness, to save me.”
- The Bird’s Nest, by Shirley Jackson
- Pine, by Francine Toon
- Starve Acre, by Andrew Michael Hurley
Favorite Quotes…
“The gods are closer than you would think. They live among the trees, behind a skin so thin you could scratch it open with a fingernail.”
“Anyway the trick to life is, if you don’t like what is happening, go back to sleep until it stops.”
“Breaking me, then mending me, over and over—that was my mother.”
“She thought, This cannot be my life. This is a ghost life.”
“’“Come into my web,” said the spider to the fly.’ You are supposed to sympathise with the fly, I think. But no one likes flies, really.”
“As I draw my last breath He will show Himself, and the face He wears will be mine.”
“‘In my book,’ he says, ‘I talk about how dissociation can actually protect us…’”
“A doctor would never understand our situation.”
“Mommy used to tell me the story of the ankou, the god with many faces who lives in the graveyards of her home. It’s so frightening to have more than one face. How can you know who you really are?”
“Dee only ever reads this one book. She likes to read, but you never know what books are going to do to you and she can’t afford to be taken off guard.”
“Hope is always the last thing to die.”
“But if people are lonely enough, they don’t care about what’s real and what isn’t.”
“I understood then that there was another, shadowy her, made of the past—like a ghost and a living person bound together.”
“People who have lived together for many generations share a special kind of madness.”
“It was a relief, in a way, to hear her say these things. I had always felt that there was something wrong with me. I was like one of the tracings I did on her baking paper, a bad one, where the comic book underneath slipped; the lines slewed across the pages and the picture became a monstrous version of itself.”
“You were made from darkness, to save me.”
“The mind is clever. It knows how to tell you something that you can accept, when life gets too hard.”
“Of what does the self consist? You know, there is a philosophical argument that DID could hold the secret to existence. It theorists that each living thing and object, each stone and blade of grass, has a soul, and all these souls together form a single consciousness. Every single thing is a living, component part of a breathing, sentient universe… In that sense we are all alternate personalities—of God, essentially. Isn’t that an idea?”
“How many times can someone bend before they break for ever? You have to take care, dealing with broken things; sometimes they give way, and break others in their turn.”
“If I tell him the truth, I guess I won’t see him again. But I am so tired of hiding what I am. My brain and my heart and my bones are exhausted by it.”
“It is a recipe, but sometimes it sounds like a spell.”
from the Afterword:
“There are people in the therapeutic community and the world at large who firmly believe the disorder doesn’t exist. DID seems to threaten people’s worldview. Maybe it’s because it interferes with the concept of the soul—the idea that there can be more than one person in a body is somehow terrifying. It certainly disrupts the underlying tenets of many religions.”
“The alter who goes to work will be cold towards family or a partner if they ring or come to see them during the day.”
“Memory is not linear, but nested in a series of compartments.”
“Retaining too much information is dangerous because it means they might have to remember other things too.”
“Dissociative identity disorder may often be used as a horror device in fiction, but in my small experience it is quite the opposite. Those who survive, and live with it, are always striving towards the good.”
Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Self harm, and Suicide
Moderate: Alcoholism