Reviews tagging 'Death'

Les sept morts d'Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

305 reviews

emory's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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? Yes

Amazingly detailed and fleshed out mystery and setting, but the 4th dimension chess about Aiden interacting with himself in other bodies throughout the day kind of ruined it for me. I was expecting the day to reset and his other bodies to return to their natural course of action on the day each time he failed to solve the murder; while I don't want to fault a novel for not living up to what I expected, the mystery itself seemed to take a backseat to our narrator trying to puzzle out where to be and what information he already knows in other hosts' brains. Not to mention how many paradoxes he creates by changing the way he interacts with old hosts (and the amount of time he spends trying to do this and his nonsensical failures at it). We're withheld important clues more than once to make the reveal more dramatic, and we're meant to remember details mentioned once, but reminded over and over again of obvious information--such as why our narrator is scared of someone literally hunting him down--as if we'd have no idea. 

The appearance of a masked mystery character who showed up just to tell our narrator exactly what was going on got on my nerves as well. I wasn't particularly sold on the reason Aiden was at Blackheath anyway, but surely there was some better way to insert that idea and others into the plot besides having a character who constantly shows up to dump information at us?

Laundry list of annoyances aside, it's a great version of those classic sorts of "big house, high society, dirty secrets" mysteries. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Suicide, Fatphobia, Death, Murder, and Child death

Moderate: Rape

Minor: Animal death

One character our narrator inhabits is described as very fat, and while in this body the narrator never stops talking about how disgusting and shameful it is and how he can barely move. It is very oversold and strongly implied that

this character forcing a woman under half his age to marry him by bribing her family

is made more horrifying because he is fat. The narrator inhabits the body of a man who is a serial rapist (not spoiler tagging bc it is one of the first things he learns about the man). No attacks are shown or described graphically but other characters speak flippantly of the crimes.

jaysaysnope's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.5

A lot of this books seems opaque for opacity’s sake. It was extremely puzzling, more of an out-and-out mystery than I was expecting, and I actually ended the book with more questions about how this world works. It was well-written and the suspense was compelling, but the author’s ending left me wanting.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Suicide attempt, Gore, Blood, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Stalking, Murder, Gun violence, Child death, and Death

Minor: Rape

breadbummer's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense medium-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

3.5

On the whole, it's an interesting premise. What if someone took your run-of-the-mill Victorian murder mystery but twisted it a little to make it so the same person was living the same day over and over again in other people's bodies? In my case, as someone who's always found sleuth stories about rich people getting murdered at fancy parties to be cheesy and repetitive, I found this story to be...well, cheesy and repetitive. Not repetitive in itself, but it uses the types of characters and themes typically found in this genre.

As far as content goes, whenever a cis man writes a book like this with not a few female characters in it, I expect a "she breasted boobily down the stairs" moment to show itself before too terribly long or at least for pretty much all the women to fall for the central male character (no matter how strongly they're written) but, to my pleasant surprise, I don't ever actually remember this happening. HOWEVER!!! If you're particularly sensitive to fatphobia, don't bother even touching this book, much less opening it up. The rather long section in which the main character goes through the day as Ravencourt is punctuated pretty much every sentence or two with disgust of the host's body. It got to be so uncomfortable that I almost dropped the book entirely if it weren't for the fact that I was behind on my reading goal.

I just finished it like half an hour ago, so my take on the ending might still need some time to cook, but I think I enjoyed it. I certainly got got about who the culprit ended up being (which took me some time to appreciate more), and I thought the idea of this whole scenario of Blackheath being kind of like

the episode "White Christmas" from Black Mirror absolutely fascinating to say the least (still wondering if the events at the mansion actually happened earlier on in the timeline and that the plague doctors gained control of it or if absolutely everything was conjured up by them).

I was originally gonna go with a rating of 3.25, but these final twists bumped it up a bit.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Fatphobia, Murder, Child death, Suicide, Body shaming, Stalking, and Classism

Moderate: Self harm, Gun violence, Confinement, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Sexual assault, Drug use, Animal death, Rape, Car accident, Blood, and Body horror

jenbertface's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.75

This book was every bit as mysterious, spooky, and crazy as I hoped it would be. The best part was getting to read it along with @stankmcdanken which made it so much more fun and enjoyable. The writing in this book was so detailed and descriptive, by far the most well written book I’ve read in a long time. The only thing that keeps me from giving it 5 stars is that I feel like the ending goes by too quickly after working for answers across 400 pages. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Fatphobia, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Torture, Violence, Blood, and Child death

Minor: Grief, Infidelity, Suicide, Addiction, Alcohol, Classism, Rape, and Self harm

retswerb's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.75

Definitely kept me engaged, although a bit longer than I often prefer. A bit hard to follow in places in the audiobook, which is common for mysteries. Certainly inventive and creative.

Worth checking content warnings on this one if you’re sensitive. There are multiple descriptions of murder from the perspective of the victim(s) which were pretty brutal. Also worth noting that the narrator’s response to the experience of being fat is pretty over the top.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Ableism, Fatphobia, and Violence

Moderate: Child death, Suicide, Death, and Injury/Injury detail

tm400's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense 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

4.0

this book is a kind of groundhog day meets murder mystery type of novel, and i enjoyed it a lot! i love books written from multiple points of view and although this book is *techincally* from the point of view of one man, the fact that he gradually adopts more and more characteristics of his hosts was really intriguing to me. i loved the last hundred or so pages of the book the most, and really loved the twist. i really appreciate the intricacies of this book - but in the same vein, i would say my main struggle with this book was its length. i'm not a super big long-book reader and this book was approaching the cusp of too long for me. i'm glad the story was as interesting as it was because that helped me get through it for sure! 
i'm giving this one 4/5 stars! 

(my copy had 458 pages) 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Murder, Gun violence, Suicide attempt, and Death

shree's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Murder, Death, Blood, Gun violence, and Violence

Moderate: Drug use, Sexual harassment, Addiction, Self harm, and Child death

Minor: Rape

hello_lovely13's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense medium-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? Yes

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Fatphobia, and Murder

Moderate: Rape, Child death, Death, Blood, and Classism

Minor: Sexual assault

guessgreenleaf's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Suicide attempt, Fatphobia, Death, Classism, Child death, Blood, Dysphoria, Sexual assault, Gun violence, Drug abuse, Alcohol, Violence, and Grief

Moderate: Torture and Confinement

emcheym's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

5.0

I love the writing style the author uses in this book. The language is so descriptive and the plot is complex. It’s a bit hard to follow at times, but I’m really impressed with the thought and detail that went into the writing. I might consider rereading it at some point just to help understand more of the details.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Murder, Death, and Violence

Moderate: Sexual assault, Child death, and Rape

Minor: Addiction, Alcohol, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, and Mental illness