Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

16 reviews

aromarrie's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Only if we have suffered can we make choices out of love.

honestly….weird sexual references and violations of a witch’s body aside….what was originally a very strong 4-star was bumped up into a 4.5 when i got close to the ending. one that was very bleak and left me feeling kinda numb, to be honest 🥲 

if there’s one thing i can compliment about this author’s work, among many others, it’s how he portrays the grief of family and losing a loved one. how fast it makes you spiral and also the town you could maybe call home. he’s a real charmer for that.

and now i need even more to get to speak with the author like please 😭 i need to hear about what goes through his head; it’s a new dream of mine, now more than ever. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Animal death, and Suicide

Moderate: Body horror, Torture, Fire/Fire injury, Islamophobia, Homophobia, and Violence

Minor: Rape

chainsawheartbooks's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense slow-paced

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

2.5

I’ve finally finished this.

The combination of characters and insane morals people will drop to all for the “good of the town” were really interesting, and I found the actual setting intriguing, I loved learning more about its rich and fucked up history. 

But this felt like a slog. I really wanted to enjoy it more than I did, and I can’t really put my finger on why I didn’t.

There was a whole host of characters that I both wanted more information on, while also not really caring what happened to them.

And I really wish that the witch had more to do, especially in the end. I understand the whole metaphorical aspect of it, but I wanted her to get shit done.

All in all, I’m content with the fact I’ve read it, but I sadly can’t see myself revisiting this. Evidently this just wasn’t for me.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Death, Confinement, Grief, Gore, Suicide attempt, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, Rape, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Bullying, Racism, Fire/Fire injury, Homophobia, and Islamophobia

sugarbucky's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious 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

INCREDIBLY CHILLING and DAMN ORIGINAL!

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual harassment, Violence, Sexual violence, Child death, Suicidal thoughts, Animal death, and Suicide

Moderate: Islamophobia, Child abuse, Religious bigotry, and Homophobia

aparker89's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective 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

4.5

This is a solid book! A fascinating story full of terror, love, heartbreak and most importantly- the evil of mankind! 
Good f&cking book! Definitely not for the faint of heart but damn- my heart hurts after reading this! 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Child death, Classism, Genocide, Medical trauma, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Hate crime, Sexual harassment, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Gaslighting, Misogyny, Pandemic/Epidemic, Physical abuse, Religious bigotry, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual violence, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Blood, Body horror, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Rape, Self harm, Suicide, Violence, Torture, Confinement, Gore, Police brutality, Colonisation, Death, Grief, Homophobia, and Islamophobia

dan_tee's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.75

A lot of good stuff in this book. For the pure horror, the author builds tension well and holds it across many pages at a time. It makes you want to know more, even as you're peeking through your fingers. 

It has some interesting themes m, though I'm not sure the author knew what they wanted to say with some of them. 

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, and Islamophobia

Minor: Homophobia

A couple of descriptions stick out as offensive/out of place. It's helpful to remember this was written 10+ years ago, and the author is not endorsing homophobic or islsmophonic views, merely using characters with these virws to solidify who these bigots were and what they thought.

_sappho_wannabe's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

the most disturbing book i’ve ever and might ever read

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Body horror, Self harm, Torture, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, Child death, Death, Gore, Grief, Suicide, and Violence

Moderate: Animal death, Child abuse, and Bullying

Minor: Homophobia

erinxmegan's review

Poorly written and boring. 

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual assault and Homophobia

vezreads's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

3.25

I loved the plot. I loved the witch, super creepy and the ending was really good. But the pervasive misogyny was really hard to read and made my enjoyment of this book really falter.  Also the author loooved talking about nipples. They were mentioned as often as possible and completely unnecessarily. The phrase "something went click in his mind" or some variation of that was used at least 4 times, which is 3 times too many as far as I'm concerned.
But like I said the plot was really good so I had to give this book a few stars

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Animal death, Misogyny, Suicide attempt, Homophobia, and Suicide

Moderate: Sexual violence

virgilsinferno's review

dark sad medium-paced

• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

2.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide

Moderate: Islamophobia and Homophobia

If suicide is at all an issue for you to read about, do not read this book. Seriously. Do not.

postmortem's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Suicidal thoughts, Murder, Sexual assault, Body horror, Child death, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, Sexual harassment, and Violence

Moderate: Toxic friendship, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Islamophobia, Racism, Religious bigotry, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Alcohol