Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Sundial by Catriona Ward

44 reviews

asolis's review against another edition

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

4.0


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keen's review against another edition

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dark emotional 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? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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jadeyfish'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? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25


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joy_ong's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-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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annahsmallwood's review

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dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I couldn't put this book down. Every time I thought I knew what was going to happen, I was proven so incredibly wrong. 

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bxnnny's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad 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

4.0

another crazy ass book by catriona ward that i will be thinking about for a long time. if you've read the last house on needless street, you know how nutty her writing is, but it's such a ride. this book goes back and forth between the past and the present, slowly piecing everything together. it becomes pretty clear at a certain point the major, key details but how it all came to be might not be what you expect. i couldn't tear myself away from this one, i was just truly enthralled in this story. the ending will leave you much like how you might have felt at the end of inception. please keep in mind there are A LOT of heavy trigger warnings in this (mainly animal cruelty/abuse/death and domestic abuse but there's many more so please check them all). i likely wouldn't have read this if i didn't already know catriona ward's writing previously to prepare myself mentally or hadn't been so interested in the story to be willing to push through.

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jinjejik's review against another edition

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adventurous dark 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? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I still don't know the purpose of the arrowwood chapters. they didn't add anything. I found them annoying and wanted 'em to be over to get back to the actual story. kept thinking I was missing something, that there was a deeper meaning, but no one online seems to have a better reading.

otherwise, the story had some interesting concepts and of course Ward's twists and turns. always like a book that keeps me wondering and guessing. I feel like the author really does not like dogs lol and i almost had to put the book down. it also has a v open ending, like in the middle of a scene.

notes/thoughts I took while reading:

they really got an MRI machine in the middle of the desert..

mia is experimenting on the dogs to remove bad/angry/vicious genes activated by suffering and terror.
I'm sure this is for Jack/whatever runs in their family to make them see the pale ones who make them do bad things. that is different from the dogs tho, how is that research supposed to translate?

what suffering has Jack/Callie endured to activate their genes? why only the oldest daughters? esp when Rob has endured significant suffering. I doubt the mad dogs have a supernatural element to their madness, at least it doesn't seem that way. 

Rob and Jack's mom died when they were 4. was she sacrificed? did she have the ailment? it's weird she's from Britain, how will that play in? an English curse lol her being from a wealthy English family. I can't figure out the dad..seems like he's just a white American hippie? while Mia is Black from the South.

similar to the last house on needless street with family curses that make you hurt people. both books take place in US, but curses come from Europe (England and Italy). Last House takes place is wooded Washington, opposite from the California desert. same coast

"I dont know how to get out've situations I don't like."

all the shit about england was made up! Jack made up memories of mom. Falcon and Mia adopted them from psycho meth heads Lena/JACKlyn and Bert/ROBert. (we don't know how the twins ended up with the meth heads and I'm still unclear on why they wanted so many kids just to torture em..unless pale voices told them to??)

theory: they adopted the twins because of something in their blood, like the dogs
( WRONG! the twins were adopted first. Rob tried to kill Jack with a screwdriver and strangle Mia with wire...so Mia began experimenting on dogs in an attempt to "fix" / "save" / change the twins )

"I mistake intensity for passion"

Rob and Jack go from oneness and total understanding to basing life choices off of how much it will hurt the other. (we learn that this is intentional on Jack's part, her way of protecting Rob is to get Rob to leave)

I thought Jack was gonna be sacrificed, but I'm pretty sure she ODs. they still haven't explained why she couldn't leave sundial. (wrong again lol jack couldn't leave because the click stopped working on her)

they're both pregnant by Irving?? I should've seen that coming.

book starts off being mostly about Rob and Callie then becomes mostly about Rob and Jack. 

Rob admits she'll continue to do drugs/heroin? while pregnant. (it's the only thing that helps since the click didn't work on her) the "puppy" farm was eventually taken over by drug dealers, that's where Pawel got the goods for him and Rob. I guess he'd had the click too.

pale Callie is real?! Rob had a miscarriage due to Jack beating her.

where does Rob get the money to buy truckloads of shit for Jack's baby?

jack gets one chapter like Marx got one chapter

Rob is dumb af to try to trick Callie..I don't understand why she wanted to lock callie in her room. I understand she's debating on whether or not to give her the last click.

after everything is out to Callie and she's locked Rob in her room:
pale Callie says "which one of them is she, Jack or Rob?" I don't get this. why does pale Callie visit but pale jack doesn't?

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thegayestghost's review

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

5.0


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kelseycanada's review against another edition

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

5.0

This book was slow at first m. After the plot became more clear I couldn’t stop reading it. One of my top reads of the year

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thetinybookworm's review

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

4.0

The beginning really drew me in, but then the middle of the story (which is when you read about the back story and what happened in Sundial) felt a bit sluggish. There were times I was wondering why certain things were happening. Towards the end was when everything came together and I literally gasped when I realized what was going on. It wasn't the horror I was expecting, but in some ways, this was much worse. 

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