Reviews tagging 'Blood'

The Hunger by Alma Katsu

36 reviews

thegayestghost's review

dark tense medium-paced

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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Child death, Death, Animal death, Adult/minor relationship, Rape, Homophobia, Alcoholism, Racism, Bullying, Blood, Hate crime, Gore, Incest, Murder, Grief, Pedophilia, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Alcohol, Alcoholism, and Cannibalism

phantomgecko's review

challenging dark sad medium-paced

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

4.0

Gruesome twist on a true story. I'm not overly acquainted with the true story, so I don't feel like I was able to appreciate this book as much as perhaps I could have.

Adding a wendigo vibe to a tale of cannibalism isn't exactly groundbreaking, but it was still interesting. I don't feel like all the questions were answered sufficiently. Specifically I feel the part of the story with Edwin Bryant felt unfinished. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Abandonment, Terminal illness, Blood, Cannibalism, Gore, Pandemic/Epidemic, Sexual assault, Suicide, Child death, and Death

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

glassflowrr's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Solid story with some amazing moments of terror and gore. I really enjoyed the pacing. There are a few too many POV characters to keep track of and some aren't very well-developed as voices, but the good ones are very interesting to be with. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Cannibalism, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Death of parent, Blood, Homophobia, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Gore, Racism, Suicide attempt, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Child abuse, Incest, Medical content, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Domestic abuse, Alcohol, and Abandonment

squid4life's review against another edition

mysterious 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? No

2.0

To those who love Historical fiction with a bit of a supernatural twist, this would be a great book. But I didn’t find it appealing at all, I want to read more historical fiction however this was not the book for me.
Also had more elements of a Romance book than it did a Horror which is what I thought it was.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood

Moderate: Cannibalism and Sexual harassment

Minor: Animal death

singlier's review

challenging dark informative mysterious tense slow-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

1.5

The Hunger 1.5/5 🐂s by Alma Katsu 

Oh I wanted to enjoy this book and I was so excited to give it a read. The Hunger is a horror retelling of the ill-fated Donner Party expedition during the mid 1800s, weaving real life histories and people with a supernatural twist of horror and fear.

But it just... Didn't hit. There were a lot of narrator characters (around 5: Edwin Bryant, Charles Stanton, James Reed, Tamsen Donner, and Elitha Graves) and I never really got close to any of them or felt a strong connection to them. The way the book is ordered, often something important would happen to a character, but it wouldn't be until the next chapter that it's revealed *why*. 

Also, there are just...a ton of characters and a few chapters in I just gave up trying to keep who's who straight: who was cousins with who, who was the daughter-in-law of who, who was who's son or the servants of who, so on. Rarely so I ask for this, but I really wished to have a family tree in the beginning to keep things straight.

The book struggles most notably with its treatment of Native American practices, quickly falling into the ideas of "Indigenous mysticism" as soon as things turn awry. Maybe it's playing off the beliefs of the settlers, but for once I'd like a horror where there wasn't "an old Native American folktale detailing this exact horror situation" going on, you know? Also, negative a million points for using the s-term to describe the collection of symptoms (cannibalism, violence, etc) of the settlers. Turning them into "creatures less than human" felt like it took away from the horror of the situation of the Donner Party: the scariest thing of all is realizing that even "good" people are not exempt from evil, and will commit atrocious acts to their fellow people in acts of survival or desperation.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Homophobia, Physical abuse, Classism, Animal death, Blood, Cannibalism, Child death, Adult/minor relationship, and Sexual assault

Minor: Terminal illness, Incest, Vomit, Suicide, and Toxic relationship

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

missshell's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Medical trauma, Gore, Cannibalism, Animal cruelty, Gun violence, Blood, Violence, Racism, Injury/Injury detail, Xenophobia, and Outing

Moderate: Sexual assault

piepatch's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Violence, Murder, Death, Child death, Child abuse, Cannibalism, Homophobia, Gore, Pedophilia, Animal death, Suicide attempt, Racism, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, and Colonisation

Moderate: Body horror, Classism, Racial slurs, Rape, Infidelity, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, and Grief

Minor: Misogyny, Alcohol, Incest, and Sexism

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