Reviews tagging 'Cursing'

Theme Music by T. Marie Vandelly

9 reviews

killmoore_'s review against another edition

dark emotional funny sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Despite predicting the ending very early on, I thoroughly enjoyed Theme Music. It's a wild ride from start to finish. Check your trigger warnings, it gets gruesome.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Body horror, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

bleaksalad's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious sad 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

Theme Music was so much fun to read. This book is like if the craziest unsolved true crime case you know got crazier 20 years later. The plot is crafted to make sure you never know what’s gonna happen next and every reveal leaves you questioning what you thought you knew. Even though for 75% of the story Dixie is an incredibly unlikable character, she’s the realest protagonist I’ve read in a horror novel in a while. If I thought I was being haunted by my gruesome dead family I’d be delusional too. Some of the more bloody scenes were kind of hard to follow logistically and the “final battle” was a little corny, but that didn’t negatively affect my understanding of the story at all. If you’re looking for gore with a heartfelt plot, Theme Music is definitely worth a read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Cursing, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cancer, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Sexual assault

alexandraloveee's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Cursing, Drug use, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

_alyssabrown's review against another edition

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Cancer, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Self harm, Terminal illness, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Grief, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

mary_stormageddon's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense medium-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

It had me guessing until the end. It's very dark, very descriptive, and very disturbing. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Body horror, Child death, Cursing, Death, Gore, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, and Alcohol

Moderate: Drug abuse, Fire/Fire injury, and Gaslighting

gumbo's review against another edition

4.0

main character suffers from being annoying disease sometimes (in terms of when she is herself, not relating to the story) but the author makes up for it with how brilliantly written all the spooky stuff is written. however,

i found it to be glaringly obvious from nearly the get-go that is was ford. no idea if the level of obviousness was intentional or not

, but i still really enjoyed the experience. i couldn't put the book down for the last third of it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cancer, Child death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Suicide, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

chloseencounter's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny mysterious 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? Yes

4.0

Theme Music has been on my TBR for months and I was so happy to finally get to it. Though this novel didn’t end up being exactly what I expected, I wasn’t disappointed. 

The unreliable narrator trope is one of my favorites and I think this book does that trope so well. Dixie is the ultimate unreliable narrator especially considering she doesn’t even know what’s happening most of the time. I enjoyed her as the novel’s voice, she was funny and at times frustrating but I still found myself hoping desperately everything would work out for her. I also liked that at any given time the reader only knew as much as Dixie knew, which kept us in the dark as much as she had been the majority of her life. I found that to be effective and kept me guessing until pretty far into the book. 

I had my suspicions about what may have been happening by the climax but I think I literally suspected almost every main character at some point in time.

I actually only figured it out because I was skimming the beginning and came upon the first paragraph about the axe, and when I was presented with a four letter word beginning with F again, it clicked for me. Despite having mostly figured it out, I still didn’t expect the ending and was very anxious for Dixie and her neighbors.

I thought that even though the story dragged just a little around the 50% - 75% mark, the ending was satisfactory for me. I especially enjoyed the epilogue because I’m nosy and I want to know where our characters end up. I realize that this kind of ending is not everyone’s favorite but I appreciate being left with some questions, I actually think all the answers are there if we look back (upon a second read I definitely began to theorize why some things happened the way they did) but again, we only ever know as much as Dixie so some things are up to the reader’s discretion. Books tend to have more staying power with me if I’m left to interpret afterward.

This was a successful read for me, I felt pretty enthralled through most of it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Child death, Cursing, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol

archaicrobin's review against another edition

challenging dark funny slow-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

1.0

This was just a complete mess. The writing was amateur and the plot was so confusing I still don’t really understand what the hell was going on. A very poor version of the “are they possessed or just crazy” trope. There’s too many ideas here and none of them are well done. You have the final girl, the haunted house, the family murder, the serial killer, the red herrings, the mystery, the cop drama, etc. it’s just way too much and none of it weaves together well. 

All the characters feel fake and just husks of people. Dixie is the worst protagonist I’ve ever read and again comes off as a complete psychopath the entire book. I would never recommend this, it just fails on all points and is so repetitive that I feel like the entire novel was the same 4 scenes over and over and over again.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cancer, Child death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Gore, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

kerrygetsliterary's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cancer, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Suicide, Terminal illness, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Sexual assault and Sexual violence