Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Bálnahullás by Daniel Kraus

109 reviews

hyperashley's review against another edition

tense medium-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? Yes

1.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Suicide, Blood, and Death of parent

limina's review against another edition

challenging sad tense medium-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? Yes

3.5

This book feels pretty ridiculous, I know. But it also has a semi-heartfelt story to it as well. It's claustrophobic, and at times heart-pounding. It's being made into a movie, I'll be interested to make the comparison.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Suicide, Terminal illness, Death of parent, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Vomit

aparker89's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective tense fast-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

What a trip! This book was nearly impossible to put down- I just had to know if Jay was going to escape his prison inside the whale! This story takes us deep into the psyche of death, grief and longing. 
While it seems a little ridiculously with the whole Jonah being swallowed by a whale, this author works hard to ensure scientific accuracy without bogging us down with too much information! 
I really enjoyed this story. It is captivating, riveting and pulls at your heart strings!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Cancer, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Blood, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Abandonment, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

geraldine's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

 jay, dearest. therapy would have been easier <3 

this poor kid and his grief over a terrible man. and then in a terrible situation comes to the wrong conclusion????? his dad fucking SUCKED dude like dude your dad is not a whale you are desperately trying to make sense of a bad situation and your dad DID suck even though you did love him and he is not a whale!!!!

i had some additional thoughts of the "reading WAY too far into things and interpreting them wildly different than i think they were intended" way but they will stay locked with me.

should i read hatchet 2: he hatchets again 

secret additional review update for storygraph only and not goodreads that is not a plot spoiler at all:

my date read tags are accurate, but i need to clarify: i read this in one go on a worknight. yes i work labor day

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death and Violence

Moderate: Death of parent

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