Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

Southern Gothic - Das Grauen wohnt nebenan by Grady Hendrix

172 reviews

kayla_kamldecker's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense slow-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? Yes

3.75

This book cleverly combined horror, suspense, humor, and social commentary. I was surprised to learn that the author is a white man as this book directly addresses the way white people dismiss and take advantage of black people, the way men dismiss and take advantage of women, and the way money rules all. 

Unfortunately the first half of the book was incredibly slow and difficult for me to get through. The book picked up more around the 60% mark. The pacing was uneven, and many scemes/chapters were superfluous. This might be a good book to study in an English class or discuss in a book club, but I likely will not read it again. 

I think this book would be excellent adapted to the big screen. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Gore, Misogyny, Murder, Body horror, and Violence

Moderate: Physical abuse, Racism, Child death, Dementia, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Suicide

Minor: Pedophilia

jenn_amanda's review against another edition

dark emotional inspiring sad 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Death of parent, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Addiction, Misogyny, Murder, Child death, Gore, Classism, Death, Mental illness, Sexual content, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Rape, Physical abuse, and Suicide

nothoughts_mt's review against another edition

dark medium-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

3.25

Like some other reviews I was expecting a vampire hunting book closer to buffy, and was disappointed. The vampire lore wasn't there for me, and I skipped an entire section because,

there was a graphic rape scene according to other reviews (lucky for me I just happened to look up a summary because the third act was slow to me)

. It's a good book by its own merits, but I just wasn't in the mood for something that dark at the end, hopefully a 3.25 reflects that.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death and Rape

Moderate: Physical abuse and Drug abuse

kit_kat006's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Rape, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, and Racism

Minor: Adult/minor relationship

melonni's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Rape, Violence, Suicide, Sexual violence, Racism, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Physical abuse and Animal death

kendralyris's review against another edition

slow-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

I thought this book might be bad at about 30%. By 50% I was sure it was bad. I was shocked at 75% when it somehow got worse.  The characters are flat and emotionless.

 The main character, a housewife with no personality, and an emotionally abusive husband, befriends what she later find out is a “vampire” but the kind that is a moth I guess since it has a proboscis of all the stupid shit. When she tries to fix it, she is thwarted by toxic masculinity in the form of every single man in town and she makes a suicide attempt. Rather than spend any time with the internal emotional world of this doomed character, the author decides to skip ahead, and in the last 20% of the book attempts to bootstrap some weird sexual tension between this monster and the main character. Don’t worry though, he didn’t forget to include rape! Nor did he forget to include an absolutely plot-point scene where the main character sees her high-school student daughter naked with the vampire. Oh, and one of the characters is obsessed with Nazis. No one has any personality or interests except the one kid who likes to read about nazis. 

And I wouldn’t be that mad except that the author decided to include a preface to his book going into his process and how he essentially wrote it to honor his own southern stay at home mom, whom he had apparently ignored when he was a child, shocked as he got older that she was a real person. 

This book is terrible. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gaslighting, Physical abuse, Suicide attempt, Gore, Emotional abuse, Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Chronic illness, Racism, Sexual assault, Classism, Dementia, Pregnancy, Sexism, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Domestic abuse, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, and Sexual content

drpeeper's review against another edition

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? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I would say check trigger warnings before reading this. not sure if it’s due to personal life struggles or the nature of the book, but this was a rough one. interesting characters and plot and some funny moments, but a pass for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Murder, Misogyny, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Gaslighting, Blood, and Gore

Moderate: Animal death, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Emotional abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Terminal illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, and Sexual violence

Minor: Grief, Addiction, Hate crime, Religious bigotry, Cancer, Alcoholism, and Death of parent

mariah_g's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Violence, Domestic abuse, Rape, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Adult/minor relationship, and Gaslighting

mushymargo's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad medium-paced

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

2.0

Lots of gross details you can tell it’s a man writing women. Lots of unnecessary naked women with WAY too many details and the sexualization of a minor

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Grief, Pedophilia, Sexual violence, Body shaming, Blood, Body horror, Adult/minor relationship, Mental illness, Sexual content, Emotional abuse, Murder, Physical abuse, Rape, and Sexual assault

ahyshia's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Injury/Injury detail, Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Physical abuse, Self harm, and Suicide