Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

Penance by Eliza Clark

138 reviews

britharrington's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

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

3.75

Well written and kept me wanting to read more to finish. The story is complex and has commentary on the how society is obsessed with true crime.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Sexual assault, Suicide, and Murder

sstento's review against another edition

dark reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal death, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Incest, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Mass/school shootings, Suicide attempt, Lesbophobia, and Sexual harassment

noveltay's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense fast-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

5.0

This felt like a documentary and a thriller movie combined. Very entertaining and a quick page turner. I googled multiple times reading to see if this was a true story, or based on a real town etc. Every character was unlikeable, minus maybe some parents.

I can’t wait for another book by this author. Her two out right now, are both 5 star reads for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Incest, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Outing, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

a_dja's review against another edition

dark 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? Yes

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Biphobia, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Torture, Violence, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Death of parent, and Alcohol

bookish_hollyx's review against another edition

challenging dark sad medium-paced

2.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gun violence, Sexual assault, Torture, Violence, and Murder

carojust's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.5

Eliza Clark is masterful at storytelling and character/world-building. She has laid out the entire plot in the first few pages, yet you're left intrigued and increasingly absorbed as the book moves on. 

"Penance" focuses on the perspectives of four teen girls, schoolmates at a small coastal town in England. They are, at varying degrees, involved in the gruesome demise of Joni, a fellow student in their class. 

The layer on top of this plot is that we are reading the POV of a fictional author who has interviewed the characters and researched Joni's case. He's an unreliable narrator to say the least. It's Inception-y, and lets us sit at a distance from the horror, like a sobering buffer. 

With this in mind, Clark plays with our sense of what is real and what is not. I found myself Googling events that were completely fictional, though there are references to real platforms, psychopaths, books and a school shooting. This disorients you as a reader, and mimics the delusion and untruthiness taking place with the characters, and true crime in general.

What definitely feels real are the Tumblr posts, and the fangirls who idolize and fictionalize mass murderers. Clark spends a lot of time illustrating this world, and we sit in the discomfort for a while. It's a paradoxically naive and dark place. 

I should add, the author purposefully avoids going into specifics of what these characters physically do to Joni

beyond setting fire

. You can assume you will fill in the details yourself, which is a wild realization.

After assessing the TWs, I recommend this book as a dark, brutal, engaging read with the most well-crafted characters I've ever come across. Keep reminding yourself it's fiction, but not really.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Incest, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Kidnapping, Mass/school shootings, Death of parent, Lesbophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

cwgraham's review against another edition

dark emotional sad 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Mass/school shootings, Murder, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Alcoholism, Bullying, Child abuse, Blood, and Death of parent

stellahadz's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense medium-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

4.25

I loved how this book was written - it's a novel presented as a non-fiction true-crime book. Clark captures the voices of the teen characters so well, and as someone who grew up using Tumblr (and who was thankfully spared the genuinely horrifying sides of that platform), it was so interesting to see it explored in literature. I also loved that the characters and the setting were so well thought out; everything was described with a perfect amount of detail that tied it back to the crime. I genuinely liked this book a lot, perhaps more than Boy Parts, but there was something about it that bothered me.

As someone who has admittedly listened to and watched true-crime stories (although I try not to engage with media that is sensationalizing or disrespectful of victims and their families), I noticed almost immediately that

Joan's murder and its aftermath was practically a play-by-play of the murder of Shanda Sharer, a girl who was tortured and killed by a group of older teenagers in (I believe) the 90s. I can't help but feel that it's a little disturbing and disrespectful for the book to be *this* closely based on an actual crime against a child. There was no mention of Sharer or her family anywhere in the book notes or the acknowledgments (although I'm not familiar with all of the books that Clark referenced in writing this book.)

Maybe Clark's intention is to engage the audience through a sense of familiarity with especially famous true crime cases. While this is clever and well-executed from a writing point of view, I'm not sure how ethical it is. Again, I did like the book overall, this is just something that bugged me about it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child death, Torture, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Child abuse, Mental illness, Sexual assault, Suicide, Mass/school shootings, and Death of parent

samanthamohun's review against another edition

4.0

this is what happens when u let men tell a story/have a podcast: they lie. jk!! ok, but in all seriousness, this is a crazy story & takes the unreliable narrator to a new level. I h8 true crime and this book made me sick, but that was the point (and I agree, thank u Eliza Clark)…so 4 stars. 

also, I’ve never been able to get into true crime and I think this book is why: the casual re-telling of true horror and trauma (and even romanticization of acts/people) is too much for me. Like no, a “grwm as I talk about *insert devastating/traumatic event* lolz sponsored by….” video isn’t ok!! be so fr.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse and Murder

niamh33100's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Incest, Torture, and Murder