Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

Casa de sare și amărăciuni by Erin A. Craig

24 reviews

bree_h_reads's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

What an amazing read. Genuinely, amazing.

The way it tackled themes of madness and grief were striking and left me confused in the way one should be when reading from the perspective of someone that’s trapped between illusions and reality. The conclusion actually remedied a lot of the issues I had with the earlier parts of the story. On top of that excellent execution, the characters and world felt very striking and realistic. Sibling dynamics and how they all reacted to things rarely caught me off guard in the sense of being unrealistic. Each character felt very real and alive. Seeing how they interacted with their world and its beliefs was also very interesting. On top of the world building itself being fascinating.

Really my only issue was the ending as it made me so mad I dropped it from 5 stars. (And this only applies the to epilogue/seven months later portion.)

Overall it was an amazing book and retellings that still capture the original while being so distinct and unique are a favourite of mine. It is, however, an extremely dark book and I highly recommend looking at content/trigger warnings before reading it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Alcohol, Blood, Child death, Death, Body horror, Miscarriage, Gore, Mental illness, Pregnancy, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Animal death, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Fire/Fire injury, and Stalking

Minor: Domestic abuse, Infidelity, and Emotional abuse

weyrdkat's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Suicidal thoughts, Death, Child death, Pregnancy, Blood, and Grief

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, and Murder

Minor: Suicide and Death of parent

winterhartarts's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual harassment, Toxic relationship, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Vomit, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Mental illness, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Animal death, Child death, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Self harm, Sexual content, Stalking, Suicide, Body horror, Bullying, Death of parent, Dementia, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Misogyny, and Sexism

4ineye's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

3.0

This story had a lot of potential but kinda fell short with pacing and execution. Things were introduced at weird times in the story and the first 3rd was incredibly slow. I think that Erin A. Craig had lots of good ideas but didn't really know where she was going until halfway through the book. 

One of the big problems is that Annaleigh is not a very active participant in the story. Pretty much everything would have happened whether or not she was present which made it hard to engage with her.

I did enjoy this book but I think it could have been so much more.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, and Death

Moderate: Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, and Gore

Minor: Miscarriage

savanah's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Suicidal thoughts, Gaslighting, Miscarriage, Murder, Torture, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Suicide and Vomit

emilyreads15's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

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

5.0

Omg. I’m literally at a lost for words right now. This book was the weirdest and creepiest book I’ve ever read and I enjoyed it very much.

I randomly just decided to start this book one day, since I had recently gotten it in a giveaway and oh my gosh. I just didn’t expect this at all. Tbh it’s been so long since I read the synopsis, so I kinda just went in blind.

It was just the most interesting plot I’ve ever read. To start off the story is a creepy retelling of The Brother’s Grimm fairytale, ‘The Twelve Dancing Princesses.’ We read the story from Annaleigh’s pov and she is the 6th born of the 12 girls. Since I’m not too familiar with the fairytale, I didn’t know what to expect so ofc I looked up the original and it was already crazy itself. But the author took this twisted story and twisted it even more. I had no clue this book had horror elements to I was so shook while reading it.

On top of this, the author is a phenomenal writer. Like the level of writing and planning it takes to write a book like this is insane. So I definitely applaud her on that. There were so many twists and turns and I just kept being surprised. While I had my suspicions, I truly didn’t know who to trust and at times I didn’t even trust Annaleigh even though I was reading from her perspective. This book truly took gaslighting to another level. 

Overall I really enjoyed this read! At times the world building lost me a little bit. Also because there were so many sisters, I sometimes lost track and often couldn’t remember what they were supposed to look like. Some of the characters also got on my nerves *cough* Camille and Morella 👀 *cough*. However, I still really loved the book and in the end I definitely recommend this read. It was truly unlike anything I’ve ever read before!

Read this book if you want some mysterious fantasy gothic vibes with a little bit of horror. 

I also recommend this book to anyone who loves Belladonna by Adalyn Grace.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gaslighting, Violence, Emotional abuse, Blood, and Death

Minor: Death of parent, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Alcohol, and Animal death

tays_books's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Blood, Death, Gaslighting, Pregnancy, Mental illness, Grief, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence

Moderate: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Suicide, Injury/Injury detail, Fire/Fire injury, Animal death, Death of parent, Self harm, and Miscarriage

Minor: Domestic abuse, Vomit, Rape, Infidelity, Sexual content, and Adult/minor relationship

komaedacoffee's review against another edition

adventurous dark sad tense 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

2.25

Pregnancy, dance partys, lot of death, no thank you.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Pregnancy and Child death

Minor: Death of parent, Infertility, Animal death, Mental illness, Abortion, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Animal cruelty, Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, Adult/minor relationship, Gaslighting, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt

piperclover's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious 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

2.75

The trigger warnings on this one are long.

I'm not sure how to rate this.  This book is not for me. I am not the demographic that should be reading this and I wish I knew that going into the book but unfortunately I didn't realize that until over 35% of the way through. Its definitely creepy, grotesque, and spooky alright. The last 25% really unravels and picks up speed but the first 75% are not boring by any means. 

 There's quite a few things that bothered me in this but a lot of that was just that this has a lot of genre/tropes I don't like so those gripes are excused by that- like Victorian era sexism.  There are 3 things though that I did dislike regardless. (1) You never really find out how long ago most people died or how old some characters are which left me a little confused at the nature of certain relationships or details of the plot. (2) I also really dislike the resolution/the why this curse is happening. It's such a cheap and trite reason and I'm just so tired of everything boiling down to

jealous woman exacts revenge

.  Here it was so obvious but it wasn't figured out until way too late which was obnoxious. (3) The last thing was that the gods are known to be real beings that exist about the humans until 70% through??? Theres a throw away line in the beginning of the book but its not clear they're real until it feels like a clunky plot device later on. I should know way sooner if gods are more than a religious system. 

 All of that being said, I  did enjoy large portions of this and I enjoyed even some of the horror aspects because I found them entertaining and intriguing. It's just that horror and Victorian era are some of my least favorite genres and mixed with the 3 issues above, I just don't think I can rate it very high. The narrator was amazing though 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Pregnancy, Blood, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Child death, Gaslighting, and Grief

Moderate: Alcohol and Body horror

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Infidelity, and Suicide

graphic depictions of decayed corpses and childbirth

capucapulet's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Death, Grief, Animal cruelty, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Misogyny, Suicide, Terminal illness, and Gaslighting