Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

Stargazers by L.P. Hernandez

1 review

ceallaighsbooks's review

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dark mysterious reflective tense fast-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

“There were times in my life I didn’t know why I kept going… I was looking up at the stars and thinking how peaceful it must be up there. I was in a lot of pain after things settled, in my body and up here… Each time I closed my eyes it felt like going home. Like I belonged there… But… [a]nytime I thought the stars were home I felt it. Felt you. I knew that home was wherever you were.”

TITLE—Stargazers
AUTHOR—LP Hernandez
PUBLISHED—2022

GENRE—horror; novella
SETTING—Texas in 2023
MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—zombie-like pandemic, apocalyptic event, PTSD, fatherhood, dystopian realities, climate change, finding the will to live in a world that’s been destroyed

WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️
CHARACTERS—⭐️⭐️⭐️
STORY/PLOT—⭐️⭐️⭐️
BONUS ELEMENT/S—The “metaphor” of star-gazing was really clever.
PHILOSOPHY—⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’ve been wanting to read more horror lately so I subscribed to Night Worms’s subscription box and this was the very first book that I read from my first box.

And I thought this book was perfectly fine. It’s definitely not what I’d usually pick up mostly because I’m just not particularly interested in the “zombie” pandemic or alien invasion tropes which is what I was getting from this story in spite of its vague explanations for *exactly* what was going on… But I didn’t feel that this story really brought anything too terribly new to these tropes and it just reminded me a lot of two other books I’ve read along these same themes that were also only ok for me.

I feel like there was maybe supposed to be like a commentary on like how people don’t need to be possessed by aliens—or whatever was happening in the book—in order to engage in self-destructive behavior, to act inhuman, and that the threat from the “rogue” Stargazers was no better or worse than the threat from the non-Stargazer people who chose to engage in violence while all this was going on… maybe? Not too terribly profound but I did like the idea of connecting it all to “star-gazing” and the MC’s discussion about star-gazing towards the end of the story (see first quote).

I’m definitely excited to read more from Night Worms’s curation in order to get a better sense of this genre!

“It’s a strange world out there. Don’t know if I belong in it anymore. Maybe I’ll go to sleep tonight and that choice’ll be taken from me. Where you headed?”

⭐️⭐️⭐️

TW // death, gore, blood, sexual violence, grief, PTSD, scary images (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)

Further Reading—
  • Station Eleven, by Emily St. Mandel
  • The Girl in Red, by Christina Henry
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