Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman

3 reviews

flintk's review

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Incest, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Excrement, Emotional abuse, Death of parent, Sexual content, Sexism, Animal cruelty, Child death, War, Religious bigotry, Rape, Misogyny, Vomit, Violence, Torture, Suicidal thoughts, Racism, Blood, Antisemitism, Alcohol, Racial slurs, Pregnancy, Pandemic/Epidemic, Medical trauma, Islamophobia, Abandonment, Genocide, Adult/minor relationship, Medical content, Child abuse, Grief, Animal death, Alcoholism, Body horror, Sexual violence, Physical abuse, Murder, Homophobia, Death, Cursing, Classism, Cannibalism, Hate crime, Confinement, and Chronic illness

danifueck's review

I never DNF a book, but I just couldn’t go further in this one. The set up sounded so promising - a quest through a plague stricken European countryside with a peculiar saintly girl? Sign me up! But the writing style and way of story telling just wasn’t for me. The “horror” in this book was mostly: look how gross this plague victim’s body is. The monsters described didn’t quite do it for me. The narrative was choppy, and felt like there was one story chapter, one horror chapter, story, horror, etc and it got uninteresting. I really wanted to enjoy this especially since it seems everyone else loved it, but I couldn’t do past 60%. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Medical trauma, Excrement, Gore, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Homophobia

Minor: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, and Pedophilia

seanml's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious sad slow-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? Yes

3.75

Not always perfectly coherent, Between Two Fires is still one of the most original and unique horror novels there is. Taking place in medieval France during the sweep of the Bubonic Plague, the book mirrors a classic chivalrous Christian knight’s tale: a journey fraught with varying perils and moral trials to test the knight’s renown. But in this rendition our knight is excommunicate from the church and our perils are Lucifer’s second crusade, continuing on from Paradise Lost’s original war. Recommended if you want an original horror novel, with the caveat that the components of medieval Christianity (Sexism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, homophobia) are still part of the setting. 7.5/10.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Injury/Injury detail, Terminal illness, Violence, Death, Gore, Animal death, Medical content, and Murder

Moderate: Alcohol, Antisemitism, Self harm, Alcoholism, Child death, Cursing, Infidelity, Outing, Blood, Body horror, Grief, Homophobia, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Rape, Xenophobia, Islamophobia, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Sexual assault, Pedophilia, Torture, and Vomit

Minor: Cannibalism, Incest, Kidnapping, Death of parent, and Genocide