Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Bálnahullás by Daniel Kraus

115 reviews

rmceachern's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense fast-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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death and Child abuse

Moderate: Alcoholism, Homophobia, and Suicide

frenchsnail's review against another edition

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

seawarrior's review against another edition

4.0

Whalefall is a thrilling and tragic novel of a young man learning to let some of his anger toward his father wash away while attempting to survive insurmountable odds. I thought this story was well written, but the extremely brief chapters were sometimes jarring and made it difficult to feel drawn into the book until the terrifying journey inside the whale began. I appreciate Kraus' focus on scientific accuracy, which led an edge of realism to this tale. I would recommend this book to readers interested in body horror, and look forward to watching the upcoming feature film. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Gore, Suicide, Terminal illness, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

majestictrilobite's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Gore, Terminal illness, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Suicide

phantomgecko's review against another edition

adventurous dark slow-paced

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

3.0

One of the blurbs I read for this claimed it was scientifically accurate. With a story so fantastic, that doesn't sound right, but I don't know enough about whale anatomy and scuba diving to dispute it.

Gritty detail. This kid gets messed up. 

But it's not all gnarly mishaps. There is a lot a lot of interpersonal trauma packed into this book. Via many many flashbacks. But all the flashbacks are okay because, while it's a lot of exposition, really interesting things are happening in the present as well. And the flashbacks do tie into the action.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Blood, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

orcamagicka's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes

5.0

So fucking good. Shocked it has such a low rating on StoryGraph, but then again, most people probably aren’t as huge whale/marine bio nerds as I am haha. This book was pure poetry and I’d love to reread it in the future.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Gore, Terminal illness, Blood, Grief, and Death of parent

Minor: Homophobia and Vomit

kingfalcon's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional 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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death and Suicide

Moderate: Medical trauma

desireewoodwhite's review against another edition

adventurous emotional informative mysterious tense fast-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty and Animal death

princessmeg's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death and Vomit

juph's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional reflective sad slow-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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Gore, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Suicide

Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic