Reviews tagging 'Drug abuse'

The Crow by James O'Barr

7 reviews

matt4hire's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad 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

5.0

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faeriviera's review

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adventurous challenging 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? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I wanted to like this more than I did. After years of reading other entries in this series, I was excited to finally read the one that started it all. I was indeed moved by not only Eric's plight, but O'Barr revealing he also senselessly lost someone he loved in the introduction. The art is gorgeous, and the use of various poems was brilliantly done. 

I think what kind of took away from it to me was just how much time we spent with the gang members Eric was after, or at least in the way they were portrayed. To me they seemed like stereotypes just meant to be canon fodder, and their scenes didn't increase my desire to see them get killed. I promise you, the multiple mentions and flashbacks of what they had done to Eric and Shelley were more than enough. 
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acetheticallyy's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful 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

5.0

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kaipitain's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Yep, it's still a 5-star read. The Crow is an absolutely fantastic books that transcends the comic world. Because I saw the film before I was quite suprised at the amount of meditative moments that the book shows between all the revenge murder stuff. And those were my favorite parts of the book.. the quiet flashbacks or scenes of grief. 

Since trying to recapture what made that original film so special in a mew movie is entirely misguided, the only new movie version of the Crow I'd be interested in seeing something that keeps very close to the spirit of the book. This book made me feel emotions with such strong saturation, I can't even begin to put into words how this made me feel. It's not a wide range of diffe ent emotions on display but damn do the present ones hit hard. I'll just say I recommend it if you're fine with the content warnings.
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doubleberger's review

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dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

Sometimes sad boy shit is good
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sinisterbeard's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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colombian_gothic's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

While "The Crow" takes a path way counter to most hero journeys, in doing this it creates a much more interesting story because of its complexities. The story of the crow doesn't follow the heroes journey of a man facing a difficult obstacle he must overcome to get to his goal, (without giving too much away) Eric's goal in this story is pretty much unobstructed and completely attainable. At first this bothered me because this means no one is a threat to him or his journey, but throughout the book you realize that's not true, the person most a danger to him is himself. As a result, "The Crow" is less so about a revenge spree, but about the anger and hurt that you have to keep alive to stay motivated to do these things in the first place. Over all it's a beautifully all be it dark story about letting go of pain, processing grief and what that does to a person.
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