Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

7 reviews

apollo0325's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

Just finished but going to come back to this review and maybe adjust star ratings (currently a 3)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Child abuse, Gaslighting, Violence, Animal death, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Blood, Child death, Animal cruelty, Emotional abuse, Self harm, Suicide, Death, and Mental illness

Moderate: Alcoholism and Medical content

There are a lot of potentially triggering material

including the description of a hanging (suicide), injury/burn descriptions, child abuse, starvation, death, death of a child (dead child's body described), and as a MAJOR PLOT POINT, dissociative identity disorder (I do not have DID so I cannot speak to the authenticity of it - the author's afterword describes her research on DID).

If you're afraid of snakes, one of the narrators has a severe fear of snakes and will constantly describe snakes.

runefactories's review against another edition

dark 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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Kidnapping, Animal cruelty, Child death, Animal death, Medical trauma, and Death of parent

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Murder, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Alcoholism, Self harm, Suicide attempt, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Hate crime and Homophobia

hxlleann's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Alcoholism, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, Mental illness, Death, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Fire/Fire injury, and Animal cruelty

aardwyrm's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

It's fun to read, and the genre is full of works that are great atmosphere 90% of the way through and then don't stick the landing. If you just want spooky eeriness, it's not a bad choice. It's just ultimately got nothing it's actually about. The setup seems to promise a situation where lots of cliche genre stuff seems to be true, and then the big twist is all the cliche stuff is in fact true, just obfuscated. It's definitely going for twisty and intricate, but a twist and just changing the story partway through aren't really the same thing. Exactly the sort of book I think ought to have a warning sticker you can optionally peek under so you can know before you get invested if the supernatural is just a bad metaphor. When the big reveal is nothing interesting has really happened, then it's hard to care about what comes before. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Physical abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicide, Violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Torture, Classism, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Misogyny, Murder, Self harm, Alcoholism, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Homophobia, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Ableism, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Body shaming, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Abandonment, Animal death, Body horror, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

wackly93's review against another edition

challenging dark informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Violence, Torture, Death, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Animal death, Death of parent, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Self harm, Injury/Injury detail, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Animal cruelty, and Mental illness

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Grief, Gore, Fire/Fire injury, Alcoholism, Blood, Confinement, Medical trauma, and Medical content

taleofabibliophile's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Animal cruelty, Emotional abuse, Murder, Kidnapping, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Death, Child abuse, Child death, Medical content, Medical trauma, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Suicide, and Death of parent

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Animal death, Self harm, and Homophobia

Minor: Fatphobia, Panic attacks/disorders, and Vomit

unphilosophize's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

1.0

 I did not enjoy this book. The story felt disjointed and like the author changed their mind what the book was about halfway through writing. One of the main characters was also severely undeveloped. The plot was fairly predictable.

I will never like a book that uses mental illness as a plot point.

A lot of folks talked about how they liked the afterward, and while I agree that it was an important thing to add it was poorly executed. I did not feel that her explanation really did justice to the diagnosis that she chose to exploit in her book, nor did it really talk about the controversy around that diagnosis in a good way.

Overall extremely disappointing. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Child abuse, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Religious bigotry, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Torture, Violence, and Death

Moderate: Animal death, Death of parent, Suicide attempt, and Kidnapping