Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

The Hunger by Alma Katsu

19 reviews

esterie's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

well, there's an interesting story in here somewhere, i guess.

first off, i think historical fiction based on real events, involving real people, really isn't my cup of tea. the fictionalization of real people struck me as kind of.... dehumanizing. as netti90 said in their review (oh how i wish we could like reviews on here!): "I think it just weirds me out when real people are fictionalized because they actually existed."

tamsen being in love with her brother and being a "witch", a tryst between reed and snyder, the romance between stanton and mary

... these were real people, and man.... that just don't sit right with me treating them like characters.

second, the pacing was not great. a fair few great horror elements early on, with large swathes of boring droll in between and unnecessary "backstory" for certain characters, some of which served the narrative literally not at all. after reading up on the true account of the donner party whilst reading this, there's really no reason a book about their journey, even a fictionalized horror book, should be boring. but it was. i kept looking at my percentage read and feeling the sunk cost fallacy more and more. and the sheer number of "characters"! i take notes while reading (memory issues) and even then i kept having to search the book for names thinking 'who tf are you???'. keeping track of who was who, who was married into certain families, who was hired help, etc. was tedious. i know the donner party was large, but damn i felt like didn't know half these people when they were mentioned, they were integrated into the story so poorly.

how i imagined the story to go, before i started, would be to follow a fictional family on this journey, and their observations of the events. i think that would have fit so much better. OR, take this concept of a blood-born disease that fills one with an insatiable rage and hunger, and center it on a (fictional!!!) pioneer family. 10 people max. something stalking outside their cabin, cattle going missing, people acting weird, getting sick. all much smaller scale, but i think it would have been so so SO much more effective!!!

on the horror element btw, i was expecting it to be more of a skinwalker story. one very vicious malevolent entity sneaking into the group, changing appearance, sowing chaos. instead it was an.....

infectious.... rabid..... werewolf?

..... situation. hmm. okay then. the lil bit of gore there was, was good, very visceral and graphic, but just not.... quite what i hoped.

some plot points were just left up in the air? when

elitha started hearing whispers

i thought "oh like those native american stories, this is gonna spread amongst the group!" but no. she's just special like that i guess.

at least from this i heard about "The Indifferent Stars Above", which i've promptly added to my tbr. still jonesing for a good skinwalker horror story, unfortunately.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Homophobia, Cannibalism, Gore, and Sexual violence

narbine's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-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? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Blood, Abandonment, Death, Mental illness, Gun violence, Gore, Grief, Violence, Sexual violence, Fire/Fire injury, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexism, Infidelity, Alcohol, Homophobia, Murder, Sexual assault, Colonisation, Animal death, Medical content, and Racism

Moderate: Animal death, Death of parent, and Classism

Minor: Domestic abuse, Incest, War, Child abuse, Pregnancy, Cursing, Suicide, and Pedophilia

thedemonastagoth's review

dark 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? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Cannibalism, Gore, and Violence

Moderate: Murder, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Colonisation, Grief, and Sexual violence

Minor: Physical abuse, Racism, Homophobia, Incest, Xenophobia, Child death, and Sexism

magical_mads's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual harassment, Racism, Physical abuse, Hate crime, Gore, Misogyny, Death, Cannibalism, Rape, Incest, Pandemic/Epidemic, Infidelity, Child abuse, Pedophilia, Injury/Injury detail, Homophobia, Torture, Sexism, Body horror, Medical trauma, Child death, Suicide, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Animal death, Violence, Gun violence, Domestic abuse, Blood, and Murder

ak97x's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Stalking, Cannibalism, Animal death, and Animal cruelty

Moderate: Child abuse and Sexual violence

Minor: Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, War, Suicide attempt, Racism, Pedophilia, Pandemic/Epidemic, Torture, Suicide, Slavery, and Sexual content

Graphic depiction or two of animal death, important to the story line. Child death / murder and abuse discussed. Attempted r*pe and familial r*pe discussed, as is voluntary incest. This book, as the real event, heavily involves cannibalism. Historical accuracies were well used coupled with fabrication to make it interesting.

filipa_maia's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

I was really interested in this book, knowing that this is (loosely) based on a true story I was expecting to get more addicted to it. But that didn't happened.

Although, at some points this is a very dark and twisted story I found it very dragging and kinda hard to keep up. There are too many characters, too many similar names, too many background stories...

Maybe I need to reread it and the next time I will enjoy it more. We'll see!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Suicide, Blood, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Death, Violence, Medical trauma, Sexism, Self harm, Vomit, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Animal death, Classism, Misogyny, Mental illness, Dementia, Domestic abuse, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Infidelity, Grief, Xenophobia, Slavery, Sexual violence, Murder, Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pedophilia, Gun violence, Gore, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Rape, Racism, Racial slurs, Panic attacks/disorders, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Colonisation, Pregnancy, Physical abuse, Pandemic/Epidemic, Gaslighting, and Suicide attempt

gen_wolfhailstorm's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.0

The Details:
Narrated by Kirsten Potter
Unabridged 

I think I would have preferred having read the non fiction event of what happened, which is a first for me.
It just felt a bit off and I can't exactly pin point why - but I know that for me, I quickly lost track of all the characters.

The skin walker lore was interesting, and I would like to read more about that in the future.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Classism, Death, Sexual violence, Torture, Xenophobia, Cannibalism, Child death, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Grief, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Rape, Colonisation, Domestic abuse, Cursing, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gore, Hate crime, Murder, Stalking, Toxic friendship, Violence, Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Blood, Gun violence, Homophobia, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Sexual assault

alexijai98's review

dark emotional mysterious sad 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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Gore, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Child abuse, Child death, Grief, Death, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Suicide, and Violence

kt2e56's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

A lot of this really worked for me! It’s clearly very well researched and the horror elements are very chilling. I think some of the different threads get a bit disjointed though and don’t fully mesh together. There’s also some reveals made towards the end that feel a bit like they were thrown in last minute (an example being

Tamsen being in love with her brother. I think that’s something that should have come up way sooner if she was so madly in love with him that she emotionally pushed herself away from other men and used sex to satisfy herself while she couldn’t get her brother. The way it’s presented in the book is very sudden and has nothing to do with the events at that point.

). The ending as a whole felt a bit rushed. Certain characters that we had POV chapters from felt pushed off to the side when I think hearing more from them could have added to the story.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Sexual violence, Cannibalism, Child death, Gore, Pedophilia, Suicide, Infidelity, Body horror, Rape, Sexual assault, Death, Grief, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Child abuse, Death of parent, Misogyny, Murder, and Racism

Moderate: Colonisation, Self harm, Sexism, Alcoholism, Classism, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Domestic abuse, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, and Vomit

sugarbucky's review

challenging dark 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Cannibalism, Racial slurs, Homophobia, Sexual violence, Child death, Rape, Pregnancy, and Miscarriage