Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

Horrid by Katrina Leno

7 reviews

leexpenandpages's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad slow-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? Yes

3.75

📝 SYNOPSIS:
Struggling with all-consuming rage, Jane North-Robinson feels chilled by more than just the autumn air when she and her mother move to her mother's childhood home, where Jane must dig up her mother's secrets to understand what is happening.
🏚📚🌹🎒🪦👻👩‍👧🎃😭

👍🏻 RECOMMENDATION:
💛 READ IF you've got nothing else, if it works for a reading challenge, etc. 

💬 FAVORITE QUOTES:
• Pg. 201

do books taste like roses?

• Pg. 209-210 (TR: Mental illness, depression)

A flash of the earth with everything destroyed except this house, the last building standing, and Jane within it, trapped inside its walls, not really caring anymore whether she made it out or not.

• Pg. 214 (TR: Mental illness, compulsive behaviors)

She imagined the words dissolving off the paper and sinking into her bloodstream. She imagined her body filled with words. Made up of them. Words instead of blood, words instead of organs.

👓 FORMAT: 
📖

📑 COMMENTS:
•  The main characters are complex and flawed. Jane's friends are heartwarming and supportive.
• Jane is frustrating slow to figure out what happened, leaping to illogical conclusions for the sake of continuing the mystery.
• I mostly agree with the Booklist quote on the back, which reads, "Leno blends Agatha Christie and Shirley Jackson for a narrative that ranges from unsettling to genuinely terrifying." (I did not find the narrative terrifying but otherwise agree.)
• The book starts a little too slow, and it ends a little too quickly, but the middle is well-paced.
• Race is poorly represented. Some of the characters seem like they were originally intended to be POCs but were changed to white or the author used POC aesthetics. The black characters are black only in description of skin tone.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Bullying, Murder, Child death, Death, Eating disorder, Grief, Addiction, and Mental illness

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Suicide, Pregnancy, Animal death, Violence, Self harm, and Cursing

Minor: Alcohol, Death of parent, Blood, and Classism

ilaxaria's review

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death of parent, Grief, Murder, and Death

Moderate: Alcohol and Suicide

llyrian's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

 This was going to be a 4.5 to 4.75 but the ending was really weird and rushed imo, I didn't like it.

It was beautifully written and atmospheric, and when I get goosebumps and a prickle on the back of my neck from a horror story it really means something,
but I saw the plottwist coming very early on, and the ending, like I said, wasn't great. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Grief, and Murder

Moderate: Animal death, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Violence, and Bullying

Minor: Alcohol

booksofautumn's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Pregnancy, Alcohol, Mental illness, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Death, Gaslighting, Grief, Suicide attempt, Violence, Bullying, and Suicide

jjames_mal's review

dark mysterious fast-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? It's complicated

5.0

A YA horror about a girl who moves into a creepy house (and also eats books)? I knew this was right up my alley immediately. North House has been abandoned. Someone broke most its windows. Oh and it's probably haunted. That all I'm gonna say about this book. Well maybe that I also loved the protagonist :). This is absolutely the kind of horror book I love to read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Grief, Bullying, and Death

Moderate: Toxic friendship, Self harm, Blood, and Suicide

Minor: Alcohol and Animal cruelty

brandon_the_beldam2993's review

dark emotional medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Cursing, Child abuse, and Confinement

Moderate: Alcohol, Blood, Bullying, and Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Animal death

luinthezu's review

dark mysterious 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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Death, Mental illness, and Suicide