Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Don't Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones

19 reviews

lancemama's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Self harm, Torture, Death, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, Body horror, Violence, Child death, Bullying, Alcoholism, Gore, Abandonment, Animal death, Blood, Classism, Genocide, Grief, Alcohol, Child abuse, Injury/Injury detail, and Murder

itsheyfay's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child death, Death of parent, Violence, Body horror, Death, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Animal death

Moderate: Abandonment, Confinement, Gun violence, Medical trauma, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Drug abuse, and Colonisation

Minor: Adult/minor relationship

sleepyshelves's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Torture, Blood, Murder, Violence, Classism, Stalking, Death, Body horror, Gore, Gun violence, and Medical trauma

Minor: Car accident

elysianbud's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

"...many sequels have surpassed their original!"
"Name one!"

The answer: 'Don't Fear the Reaper'.

He's only gone and Terminator 2/Aliens/The Godfather Part 2'd us. One has to wonder if Stephen Graham Jones did this on purpose--the ultimate meta callback to Scream 2's classroom scene about sequels, because this sequel is better than the original.

Yet another incredibly fun ode to slashers, in my opinion, 'Don't Fear the Reaper' far exceeds its predecessor. I found the plot easier to follow, the characters more alive (until they're dead), and overall more entertaining. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Vomit, Murder, Violence, Blood, Body horror, Death of parent, Child death, and Animal death

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Classism, Medical trauma, Cursing, Drug use, Alcohol, Colonisation, Confinement, Adult/minor relationship, Gaslighting, and Medical content

perthalus's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

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

The writer tries way to hard to make his main character an iconic badass horror protagonist to the point where it becomes eye-rolling.  Instead of focusing on character dynamics and relationships you just get mostly pointless snapshots of random character’s lives before they die a few pages after.

The antagonist somehow also feels incredibly undercooked despite the book being 500 pages long, and the prose is so confusing at times that I honestly can’t tell what is where and how something is happening. You think you’re in one place and then bam you’re on the opposite side of where you thought you were.

Made me miss the first book, which wasn’t too great in the first place.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Grief, Violence, Blood, Gore, Gun violence, Murder, and Torture

Moderate: Cursing and Car accident

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Incest, Police brutality, and Emotional abuse

jayjm94's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

As perfect a book as I’ve ever read. It had everything: horror references, incredibly adept women, strange teenagers, a small town on the water, a snowstorm, and some light supernatural content. an absolute gem by SGJ, almost certainly my best book of the year (close 2nd being my heart is a chainsaw) cannot wait for the 3rd!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Drug abuse, Death of parent, Gore, Grief, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Murder, Violence, Body horror, and Drug use

Moderate: Child death, Child abuse, Sexual assault, Car accident, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Animal death, and Incest

zosiablue's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring 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

4.25

Man, marry me, Stephen Graham Jones. He's just the best. Like all his stories, this one has full heart and gorgeous writing and campiness and tragedy and action and total respect for the genre. He's the only my writer I know who can do textual jumpscares. This is true horror but it's exhilarating because it follows slasher-horror rules until it doesn't and the rule breaks are totally earned. Can't wait for the next one. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Grief, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Murder, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Child death, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Suicidal thoughts

katie_luder's review against another edition

dark

4.75

I loved that this book brought in some other voices along with Jennifer(Jade)'s POV. I didn't like it quite as much as the original, and the audiobook changed narrators for Jade, which infuriates me as an audiobook reader. I loved that it brought in more voices but they should have kept the same actor for Jade. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Sexual violence, Blood, Medical trauma, Gore, Death of parent, Incest, Murder, Death, and Grief

seawarrior's review against another edition

dark

3.0

While I wouldn't say I disliked this book, I sorely missed Jade's voice as the leading narrator. Her furious wit and resilience is what made the first book engaging enough to tear through in one night, while this novel took me a few weeks to finish. This story was more of a generic slasher as well, though at times I found it difficult to understand what was happening and who was really behind the violence, and I'm not sure if that was intentional. While somewhat of a disappointment, this sequel is still thrilling, unique and gleaming with rich characterization. I don't regret reading it, and Jones had his work cut out for him attempting to surpass the original. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Death, Stalking, Child death, Medical trauma, Drug abuse, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, and Grief

magellen's review against another edition

dark funny slow-paced

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

3.0

If this book was a slasher, it'd be tripping over its own dark robe every three feet and you'd stand there shaking your head rather than running. 

What a bummer follow up- I say that with love, as I'm obviously still reading the third when it drops, but oof what a precipitous drop off after the first. 

Where Chainsaw succeeds beautifully in tying horror and slashers to catharsis and processing trauma, Reaper tramples the dialog between healing and relapse/generation trauma into memes.

Having a teenager find solace from abuse via slashers and wishing it into the world had a much better punch than circumstantially dropped in serial killer does some killing but there's also a corrupted final girl out killing and for some reason movie rules get applied to the real world killer even though like...sigh what? The book runs itself in too many directions. Even with the mirror of Armitage and Cin, the mirror of obsession with vengence, it grapples to get the comparison out clearly.

Because of the narrative clutter

(honestly, Letha? Aside from her brief foiling of Jennifer not yet Jade, she feels like an after thought, a PPS - hell, Jade feels like an after thought at times, and sure a slasher progresses to next gens, but the juggling of Cin and Gin and Gal is uh...uninspiring. )

, the book reads much how a car drives with one incredibly flat tire on a potholed road. It gets some speed and drags behind, we change location endlessly, aimlessly, trying to find an ending. The references don't land as well, largely because they're reaching to put movie logic over an already established 'irl' killer. Yes, Jade is more aware, more critical of her slashers as she applies logic to ground the narrative somewhat, but it veers off hard time and again.

(and then the stuff with Melanie? And Hardy? Just...unless it's coming around in book three, it didnt have the emotional punch to float).

SGJ is *very good* at writing the conversation this book wants to be, and I wonder where it got lost along the way. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Blood, Grief, Body horror, Gore, Death, and Death of parent