Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

The Deep by Nick Cutter

68 reviews

szyca's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

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

4.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Gore, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Fatphobia, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Self harm, Torture, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Death, Emotional abuse, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, Violence, Gaslighting, Incest, Mental illness, and Pandemic/Epidemic

wyabook234's review

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Confinement, Animal death, Body horror, Emotional abuse, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Kidnapping

lollypopzoo's review

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Sexual assault

e_gracereads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense 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? Yes

3.5

This book is a 5 star read until literally the last… 20 pages? Which is just really typical for Nick Cutter, unfortunately. I LOVE his plots and I LOVE his books and they’re nauseating and gut wrenching, and then the last 20 pages rolls around and totally ruins it. The plot gets lost by whatever weird crock shit he’s come up with, overexplaining things to the point where they’re no longer scary, and the ending will just leave you unsatisfied. I am just not ever impressed with how his books end — he spoon feeds you the answer instead of just leaving you with dread. 

---

Content Warnings

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

jalecd's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• 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

3.0

Atmospheric and horrifying with visceral descriptions that will often leave you feeling sick and asking yourself “why?!”. I enjoyed the book but mainly was let down by the ending which  felt unsatisfying and sudden. I felt as though there were a number of loose ends that were never tied up, and though likely a narrative choice, I was just left frustrated and wanting answers.

The ‘Gets could have pretty much been completely removed from this book and would have made no impact on the plot or otherwise, it very much feels like a wasted aspect of the plot 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, Animal death, Body horror, Suicidal thoughts, Cannibalism, Gore, and Grief

Moderate: Confinement, Incest, Pedophilia, Emotional abuse, and Child abuse

jesshorn10's review against another edition

5.0

 This book was so good! The way the author built tension throughout the story was very well done, and there were lots of scenes that genuinely creeped me out. The twists were unexpected, and the imagery was horrifying at times. Parts of the story reminded me of IT and The Shining in the best possible ways. I loved this!

Check content warnings though! 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Incest, Sexual assault, Violence, Animal cruelty, Domestic abuse, Animal death, Confinement, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Fatphobia, Body horror, Emotional abuse, Blood, Child death, and Eating disorder

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.

---

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

papercrowns's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I really enjoyed The Troop—I gave it five stars—and I remember picking that one up because of the praise it received and how many of my fave booktubers said it was super disturbing. 

Well, I don't remember too many specifics about The Troop (my memory's fault, not the book's), but I do recall thinking it was awesome and gross, but not super disturbing per se. Well, The Deep was certainly disturbing. But, I understand why The Troop is the Nick Cutter book people talk about most, because while The Deep does what it says on the tin in terms of the horror, it's got its problems. 

• An overuse of onomatopoeia to the point of distraction.
• The story touches on a lot of serious, uncomfortable topics, and they certainly gave me the ick but for the most part, these serve the story and felt intentional. However, there was some fatphobia that didn't quite feel necessary or serve the story that I could have done without. It was very like
  "Ooh, she got fat, gross! We know she's gonna be a baddie!"
• The general dialogue was fine, but when it came to banter, it felt a bit forced and unintentionally cringe, particularly between the main character and his brother. 
• The 'Gets, the worldwide pandemic that instigates the whole narrative, was super interesting but is largely forgotten once we get to the underwater lab in the Challenger Deep. It was such an interesting concept that it would have been great to see it have more impact to the story rather than being a throwaway plot device. 

These things brought it down to a 4-star read for me, but none of them derailed the story. It's a real wild ride and intensely unsettling; exactly what I want from a horror book. Nick Cutter excels in describing horrifying, uncomfortable, and balls-to-the-wall cuckoo-bananas situations. 

His descriptions of the characters' psychological trauma as they grapple with desperate situations are so intense and unnerving; I often found myself wanting to put the book down to give myself a break but also being absolutely unable to tear my eyes from the page. There was one claustrophobic sequence in particular where Cutter describes

the main characters crawling through an access tunnel that gets narrower and narrower with no guarantee that they'll be able to get out at the other end

. Ooof, my skin was crawling, my heart was racing, and I almost threw the book across the room in vicarious panic. 

And frankly, that's some chef's-kiss horror writing if you ask me. 

I can't wait to read more Nick Cutter, cuz I know it'll be a grand creep-fest that does exactly what it says on the tin. However, I will say that I'd love to see a bit more character diversity, particularly more women.

Worth checking the trigger warnings before reading if you have triggers. Definitely do not read if bad things happening to animals in your reading is a dealbreaker. 😬

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Animal death, Blood, Animal cruelty, Gore, Grief, Self harm, Body horror, Confinement, Death, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Medical content, Excrement, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Domestic abuse, Incest, Child abuse, Fatphobia, and Eating disorder

Minor: Death of parent and Sexual assault

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.

---

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

midnightgremlin's review against another edition

dark tense fast-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

3.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Emotional abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual assault, Child abuse, and Death of parent