Reviews tagging 'Child death'

The Deep by Nick Cutter

53 reviews

madwoman16's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

gripping from start to finish

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Content Warnings

Minor: Confinement, Death, Panic attacks/disorders, Child death, and Animal death

hannanni41's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.5

I really wanted to love this book. The description of the book made it seem like exactly my kind of thing: a mysterious evil lurking in an underwater lab that's 8 miles below the surface in the Marianas Trench. I had seen comparisons with The Abyss, The Shining, Alien, Sphere, Event Horizon, and Solaris. 

Unfortunately the story has absolutely zero slow burn and cranks up to an 11 almost immediately (and stays insane the whole time with no regard for pacing) and it felt like it was mostly just flashbacks and rarely creepy underwater lab.

Flashbacks to the protagonist's awful, abusive childhood with his evil fat, super fat (did I mention she's fat? The author takes every opportunity he can to remind us) mom. Flashbacks to tell us more about his sociopath scientist brother that we're supposed to care about saving. More flashbacks to the protagonist's son being kidnapped and his marriage falling apart. Other people describing their flashbacks to the protag or him reading about their flashbacks in journals. Flashbacks!

There are a few genuinely good moments that unnerved me, like

the stuff with the bees

, but not enough. Most of the parts that were supposed to be scary either felt like an exercise in how much misery the author could put the characters through or were derivative of the (much) better works this book gets compared to. The inciting incident of the nonsense pandemic doesn't even end up mattering to the story. It just gets shoved to the side with all the other nonsense plot points.

Also, there is so much description and talk about a millipede incident. It goes on for so long that it stops being scary and is just really gross. Please stop talking about the millipede.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Gore, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, and Fatphobia

Moderate: Eating disorder, Incest, Child death, and Domestic abuse

hannahfaith25's review against another edition

Too slow paced and too much gore 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Confinement, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Child death, Child abuse, Grief, and Blood

If you’re claustrophobic or have issues with animals (mice, bees, lizards, dogs) being used for science experiments I’d stay away

lithoerary_atria's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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

2.5

the troop by nick cutter was one of absolute favourites this year and truly the mastery over body horror this guy has makes me wanna study his brain. and that thing persists here too!! that being said i didn't like this one as much i hoped to do.

lemme break it down for ya:

parts 1, 2 & 3? utterly boring and mind-numbing and the whole writing down the sounds made didn't help. also i DIDN'T appreciate the numerous flashbacks that went on for pages. they could've been done away with. 

parts 4 & 5? HELL YEAH, that's my stuff!! horrors beyond human comprehension & feeling helpless? fuck yes!! the writing was still meh tho especially with those internal voices inside luke's mind. it was silly & brought you out of the story lol.

part 6? i- we don't speak about it lol.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Murder, Child death, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death, Medical content, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicidal thoughts, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Animal cruelty, Emotional abuse, Gore, and Suicide

Moderate: Sexual assault, Fatphobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, Incest, Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, and Sexual content

ccattwel's review against another edition

dark sad tense slow-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death and Animal cruelty

Moderate: Child death

morganhill121's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Child death, Fatphobia, Gore, Pedophilia, Body horror, Child abuse, Animal cruelty, and Injury/Injury detail

mollyolloxenfree25's review

dark sad tense slow-paced

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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Mental illness, Child death, Death of parent, Death, and Body horror

apolloniablooms's review against another edition

dark 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

2.5

Like a lot of horror/thrillers this book suffers from hitting the peak amount of tenseness a person can feel really early on and then maintaining it instead of giving the reader relief then building tension again.  By the end I was skimming.  Bad guy is bad because of mental illness. Wish it had been a short story.  Would be a good premise for a video game.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Gore, Kidnapping, Medical content, Death, Mental illness, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Animal cruelty, Child death, Confinement, Self harm, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Bullying, Grief, Torture, Stalking, Suicide, Panic attacks/disorders, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Vomit, Terminal illness, Animal death, Physical abuse, Murder, Blood, and Body horror

noveltay's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

I didn’t get into this one as much as I did with The Troop. I think if you like old school horror sci-fi, you’ll enjoy this book. The flashback storyline with the son creeped me out way more than the current storyline. Overall it was a page turner.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Blood, Child death, Death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

forthelove's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

This book was well written and incredibly detailed. You definitely felt like you were in a dark damp fever dream the entire time. The book is very graphic so if your stomach turns Easily this one is not for you. I was bummed that we didn’t really get to learn about the ‘gets more than we did. For me, over all this story didn’t do it for me but it was a great mix of horror and psychological thriller. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Blood, and Child death