Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Jar of Hearts by Jennifer Hillier

105 reviews

elmewhy's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Domestic abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Body horror, Cancer, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Incest, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Blood, Vomit, and Alcohol

Minor: Death of parent and Abandonment

maryrhg's review against another edition

dark tense medium-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

1.0

TW: rape (happens multiple times through out the story basically the big hitter of the entire book)

Maybe I’m the weird one but I seriously have no idea why people rate this book so highly. There is so many rape scenes in this book most of which seem to be there just to make the reader uncomfortable and don’t really ad anything to the story? (If you know, you know I’m talking about the last one). The ending is rushed, the romance is rushed and unbelievable. You could remove kai from the story and it would have basically been exactly the same. I didn’t find it thrilling or suspenseful at all just icky to read. If you’re looking for something to disturb you this might work for you, but for me this was definitely not it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Fatphobia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Murder, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Body shaming, Cancer, Child abuse, Pedophilia, Vomit, Grief, Death of parent, and Gaslighting

uppercasenoises's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad 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

4.25

I was hooked within minutes of starting this book. I'll read anything JH writes. Time jumps. Dual perspective, third person limited.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Murder, Pregnancy, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Grief

Minor: Cancer, Stalking, and Alcohol

Spice: 2/5 relatively explicit sexual content, although only mentioned twice.

toofondofbooks_'s review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad 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

I think this was a great thriller, there's really no doubt about that. Jennifer Hillier is a great storyteller with a gripping writing style and throughout this book she uses a dual timeline in a really effective and creative way. I thought the story in general was original and horrifying and I enjoyed the use of symbolism throughout. I also liked the twist, even though I did guess it, because I think that me being able to figure out a twist means that the groundwork in the thriller has been laid properly. I find that often when twists come out of left field, they are the twists that don't make sense. This one definitely did.

WARNING: HELLA SPOILERS AHEAD

I did have issues with this one though, which what holds me back from giving it a perfect rating. I don't know if this is something that runs through all of JH's work, but there was so much fatphobia. Now, if the characters were just fatphobic, that would be one thing. Characters aren't perfect and they shouldn't be. Things like Angela saying "your thighs are getting fat" did not bother me because that felt like something that character would say - she's a teenage girl in the year 2000 when diet culture is thriving, of course she would say that. What I had a problem with was when characters in the narrative were endlessly described as these fat, disgusting creatures. There is a character in the beginning of the book, Bernadette/Bernie who is in prison with Georgina (Geo) our protagonist, she is framed as an antagonist and does undeniably terrible things to Geo, including literally raping her, and instead of her horrible traits being focused on...the narrative chooses to focus on how fat the character is. It's....gross. It was really distracting for me.

This leads me into my next problem - queer characters or characters who might be queer are framed in such a negative light throughout this whole book. There is Bernie, who is predatory and a prison rapist (which is not to say that lgbt+ people can't be rapists, but this isn't the kind of representation I want to see, there are enough people calling this community rapists, thanks). There is also another character who goes to high school with Geo and Angela who is a football player. I can't remember his name, but anyway, he might be gay, and in order to keep himself from being suspected as gay, he says really disgusting stuff about having sex with Angela after she disappears, framing the one gay character who could possibly have a decent arc into a pretty terrible person...?

So, while I did really enjoy this, I believe that I have valid criticisms here and I really hope that these things aren't a common theme throughout JH's work because I really do like her writing. I'll give her another chance.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Incest, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Murder, Lesbophobia, Abandonment, and Alcohol

Moderate: Racism and Classism

meltingpages's review against another edition

dark sad medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Abortion

Minor: Death of parent

rdaneshg28's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Rape, and Violence

onemorepagecrew's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense fast-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? Yes

5.0

Jar of Hearts by Jennifer Hillier was all I hoped it would be.  I knew going in it would be a disturbing page-turner and both were accurate.  What I didn’t expect was the unbothered tone of each horrific thing and how downright effective it would be as a writing style.  This is a new benchmark in thrillers for me, along with The Whisper Man.  

 

In this story we meet Geo, a woman with a successful pharmaceutical career and about to be married.  The story opens as she is being sent to prison for her role in a crime that happened when she was a teenager.  The timelines switch between then and now, and as a reader the inner thoughts of Geo are hard to trust which adds to the suspense.  I liked that the mystery was less about trying to solve what happened, that’s clear early on, and more about the psychology of who played what role in each timeline. 

 

There are two levels of twists in this book.  One is a classic thriller gotcha (I saw it coming) and a second was more chilling, and for me, very unexpected.  Both were fantastic. The author’s IG profile says she imagines the worst in people and then writes about it – that is funny and accurate.  She’s now an auto-read thriller author for me.  

 

Please know, this book is not for the faint of heart – take note of all content warnings.  The disturbing elements are not peppered throughout, they’re in every inch of the book. 

 

Content warnings:  graphic violence, sexual assault, murder, child death 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Sexual assault, Violence, and Murder

by_the_moonlight's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Incest, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Murder

kbergsten's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Incest, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Abortion, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, and Alcohol

bookishlifeofkels's review against another edition

challenging 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

5.0

🌟rating: 5 stars

📖genre: thriller / mystery

#️⃣pages: 311

✍🏼same author who wrote LITTLE SECRETS, CREEP, FREAK and THINGS WE DO IN THE DARK (pub date: 7/19/22)

“In every story, there’s a hero and villain. Sometimes one can be both.”

Angela, Geo, and Kaiser are the best of friends but then beautiful & popular high school girl, Angela Wong goes missing without trace. No one knows what happened until 14 years later where her remains are found behind Geo’s house. Geo now has successful job, a fiancé, and a bright future ahead of her until the past decided to come back to haunt her.

Buckle up, folks. You’re going to be in for one wild ride! This book was a definite page turner with so many twists & turns. Every time I thought I had it figured out, a new twist happens! This is definitely for those who love true crime or anything serial killer related. On the flip side, this is not for those for the faint of heart. There are gruesome, stomach churning, and raw moments that even made me question if I could handle it 😬 This was my first Jennifer Hillier book and it will definitely not be my last. 10/10 recommend!

⚠️TW: rape/sexual assault, murder, alcohol, drugs, violence, emotional & physical abuse, descriptions of crime scenes/corpses/dismemberment, infidelity

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Infertility, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, Vomit, Abortion, Murder, and Alcohol