Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

The Night Swim by Megan Goldin

9 reviews

vj_thompson's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.5

A thought provoking story that depicts why sexual assault cases next see the light of a court room. The process is time consuming, lawyers can brutal, and it may do more harm than good. 

Megan Goldin is an auto-buy author. The first book I read by her was Stay Awake. She does an amazing job at character building and touching on subjects matters like sexual assaults or mental health conditions. These topics are normalized in Megan’s stories. I found myself both times rooting for the main characters, and the side characters, wishing them all a happy and successful outcome.

I am looking forward to reading the sequel, and I hope our main character Rachel continues to fight the good fight.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Child abuse, Grief, Bullying, Violence, Death of parent, Sexual harassment, Emotional abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Death, Alcohol, and Murder

Moderate: Car accident, Physical abuse, Kidnapping, Fire/Fire injury, Alcoholism, Cancer, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, Terminal illness, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Pedophilia, Animal cruelty, Stalking, and Gun violence

cryptidonwheels's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Murder, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Misogyny, Rape, and Death

Moderate: Alcohol, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Cancer, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal cruelty and Stalking

gen_wolfhailstorm's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

3.0

The Details:
Narrated by Bailey Carr, January LaVoy, Samantha Desz
Unabridged 

One of my late netgalley arcs, I decided to listen to via my library app.

This was riveting and harrowing read following a dual sexual assault case, one in the present day and one set in the mystery of a cover up that happened some years before. 

We follow a podcast presenter investigating both cases and it was interesting to see the perspective of varying characters of what, to me, is an obviously awful crime.

The acts done to the body was so graphic and really hard to read, so please bear that in mind.

Overall, I'm glad to have finally read this, but it was a heavy, difficult read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Animal cruelty, Cancer, Car accident, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexism, Abandonment, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Sexual content, Stalking, Torture, Dementia, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Violence, Chronic illness, Gaslighting, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Rape, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Mental illness

chelseyas's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad 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? No

2.0

It wasn't a bad book, per se, but there were a couple things I found unsettling/bothersome. The first was the heralding of Rachel as some sort of investigative genius. Not to say that the cops can't mess up, but in light of the Idaho murders (specifically the mob mentality towards the living roommates and the boyfriend) the idea that cold cases can be solved by a random person on the internet is iffy. Secondly, the book threw me off from the start by describing Rachel's podcast as "sultry" and stating that it "makes murder sexy." I'm paraphrasing here, but I couldn't get past this exploitive, romanticizing view of true crime. This is also problematic as the story is basically a fictionalized version of the Brock Turner/Chanel Miller case. Lastly, the writing itself is very meh. I predicted the reveal about halfway through the book. The author also has a large vocabulary that shows up throughout the book. This is justified when characters like Rachel and the lawyers are speaking, but sounds disingenuous on the rest of the cast. The characters are very underdeveloped, and all have similar voices. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, and Rape

Minor: Animal cruelty

czoltak's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Animal cruelty

ashleechmiel's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

This book has a lot of graphic descriptions of rape and sexual assault, you will be uncomfortable at times. But honestly I think it’s about time people got uncomfortable. This may be a fiction novel but so much of it really hits home with the realities of how sex crimes are seen and handled. There are two interwoven plot lines here and you will go back and forth on who is guilty in the Stills case, and you don’t find out until the very end. I didn’t know how that story line was going to flush out with so little left in the book but it did very smoothly. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Alcohol, Death of parent, Child abuse, Child death, Animal cruelty, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

jayteenun's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual assault and Rape

Minor: Animal cruelty and Gun violence

rebeccahensley's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Kidnapping, Pedophilia, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Stalking, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Blood, Bullying, Cancer, Car accident, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Drug abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Grief, Gore, Mental illness, Murder, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Terminal illness, Torture, and Violence

rsteve388's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

Wow. This book was hard for me to read. It had multiple rape scenes and or allusions to rape. I thought the addition of a podcast added an interesting element to the story. I loved the main character and hope we see her in another book. This was a tense read, but well done and excellent in it's execution. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Emotional abuse, and Rape