Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

The Devil in the White City (Abridged): Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson

21 reviews

magosti1's review against another edition

dark emotional slow-paced

2.0

Deeply disturbing true crime novel about a serial killer in Chicago while the worlds fair was being built. Too disturbing 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Mental illness, Torture, Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Physical abuse, and Kidnapping

camilleion's review against another edition

informative inspiring slow-paced

4.0

90% architectural history, 10% true crime.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, and Death

Moderate: Confinement, Emotional abuse, Torture, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Infidelity, and Classism

Minor: Body horror, Gore, Gun violence, Suicide, Abandonment, and Mental illness

headachesince03's review against another edition

adventurous dark informative inspiring mysterious tense slow-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Infidelity, Physical abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Abortion, Alcohol, Misogyny, Police brutality, Pregnancy, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Bullying, Death of parent, Miscarriage, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Colonisation, Racism, Terminal illness, Confinement, Death, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Addiction, Alcoholism, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Child death, Classism, Cultural appropriation, Dementia, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Medical content, and Murder

aromarrie's review against another edition

dark informative mysterious slow-paced

4.5

my first nonfiction read of the year and it has burned a hole into my memory for years to come

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Murder, Child death, Medical content, Fire/Fire injury, Death, Classism, and Body horror

reddeddy's review against another edition

dark informative mysterious sad tense slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Torture, Violence, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Stalking, Child abuse, Gore, Child death, Death, Drug use, Body horror, Confinement, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, and Infidelity

Moderate: Abandonment, Abortion, Animal death, Blood, Terminal illness, Cultural appropriation, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Chronic illness, Classism, Animal cruelty, Drug abuse, and Gun violence

librarymouse's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

3.75

The literary descriptions and firsthand accounts of the fair, and the effort and love put into it's design and creation made me wish I could have attended. The detailed descriptions of Holmes' murders and his disarmingly charming personality made me glad that I was born over a full century after 1893. I like greatly enjoyed The Devil in the White City, the second half was a far easier read than the first. I'm not sure if I've retained as much of the information about the fair's designers and the events that took place while it was open as I wanted to. While interesting, the section about the initial design process and the political lobbying that took place in order to get the fair to occur in Chicago read similarly to a textbook, in stark contrast with the narrative way the rest of the history was told. Overall, an informative and interesting read. I would use enjoyable to describe the writing, but not the content.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Gore, Blood, Grief, Gun violence, Infidelity, Suicide attempt, Abortion, Classism, Colonisation, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Dementia, Alcohol, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Suicide, Child death, Forced institutionalization, Medical trauma, Terminal illness, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, and Misogyny

Moderate: Racial slurs

Minor: Xenophobia

cupofbooksreviews's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense slow-paced

I have given The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson two out of five stars ⭐️⭐️

A dark and devious book filled with architecture and killings. A mixture of two I never thought I would read in the same book.

This book started off quite strong for me; learning about an architect called Daniel H. Burnham and a serial killer called H.H. Holmes. I find non-fiction books fascinating especially when based around true crime events, although that meant that there were a lot of brutal attacks that happened to a lot of people.

I found this book started to repeat itself quite a lot, especially during the chapters that surround Daniel Burnham and the architecture of the Chicago World Fair. I appreciated that the information was important and relevant however, due to the repeated information I started to become quite bored of Daniel Burnham’s story. 

As I became less intrigued by this book, I ended up reading this book for a fair few weeks which dragged out the experience. I had hoped there was more information regarding H.H. Holmes rather than Daniel Burnham.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Kidnapping, Miscarriage, Murder, Physical abuse, and Violence

meganpbennett's review against another edition

dark informative mysterious medium-paced

3.0

I read The Devil in the White City on the advice of a true crime-loving librarian colleague. It's interesting, with H.H. Holmes killing indiscriminately around during the Chicago World's Fair, though I started reading the book without realizing that H.H. Holmes was the Devil in question. 

The book has lots of interesting detail on the World's Fair - after all, how could Chicago hope to beat Eiffel and his Tower from the previous World's Fair? Enter an engineer named... Ferris. 

The book was less graphic than I thought it would be, but there is rather disturbing imagery involving Holmes killing and disposing of the bodies. 

I think the book would have been stronger had the author not switched perspectives between Holmes and the builders of the Fair every chapter. I think it would have made more sense for the author to have chosen a time frame - three months? - and written about the building of the Fair, then Pendergast, then Holmes. That would have strengthened the connect between them

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Child death, Death, Violence, Body horror, Confinement, Gore, Torture, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Fire/Fire injury, Misogyny, Abortion, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Alcohol and Pregnancy

alliemikennareads's review

dark informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

The Devil in the White City was 10 hours of audio at 1.5 speed. I previously read it in physical format years ago and I must say I liked the audio format much better. 

Bullet point review: 

- I forgot how much the book discusses architecture; this got tedious at times. 
- I loved the rich detail about the Chicago worlds fair and the way the book splices the fair, its history, and HH Holmes’ evil deeds together. 
- I still found it a great form of true crime/ nonfiction that reads like fiction. 

TW for some really graphic descriptions of a slaughterhouse, gas chambers, suicide, murder of women and children and dead body discovery. 

If you can get past the graphic parts and like historical fiction, I’d definitely recommend this one!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Murder, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Child death, Child abuse, Body horror, Confinement, Death, and Medical trauma

kaitlinlovesbooks's review

dark informative mysterious tense medium-paced

3.5

I expected to like this more. The writing is excellent, but I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of detail included about the construction of the World’s Fair. There were far too many names for me to keep track of, especially when it felt like every single one of them referred to someone who was white with blue eyes. I really liked the audiobook narrator‘s voice, but sadly I think this is one time where my comprehension would have benefited from reading the print version instead. I found Holmes’ story to be far more gripping, despite or perhaps because of its macabre descriptions (a couple of scenes are borderline graphic). Overall, this should be a good fit for history buffs and true crime devotees. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, Body horror, Gore, Death, Child death, and Blood

Moderate: Mental illness

Minor: Abortion and Addiction