Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Sundial by Catriona Ward

87 reviews

sasisaskia's review

dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Animal death, Toxic relationship, Miscarriage, Mental illness, Death of parent, Drug use, Animal cruelty, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, and Child abuse

carl_still_reading's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Sundial is a mixed bag for me. Whilst I enjoyed most of it, some parts didn’t work out for me during it. While I was hesitant whilst listening, by the end everything comes together and gives us a final shocking reveal. 

It explored toxic family dynamics really well and reminded me of Sharp Objects and the inspiration it draws from it. 

However I did find the flashbacks and Arrowood sections to be slow,weird and sometimes boring. Whilst I appreciated the explanation of Rob’s childhood, I wish the flashbacks were shortened down and the Arrowood sections taken out, as the story within a story didn’t really add anything to the main story it was trying to tell. 

Overall I did enjoy my time with Sundial and the ending definitely had me shook in typical Catriona Ward fashion. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Animal cruelty, Toxic relationship, and Emotional abuse

annie_reads_books's review against another edition

dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Animal cruelty, Death, Child abuse, Death of parent, Toxic relationship, and Torture

Moderate: Drug use, Confinement, Pregnancy, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Murder, Miscarriage, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, Domestic abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Infidelity, and Gore

asolis's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Child death, Confinement, Animal death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Animal cruelty, Blood, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Violence, and Mental illness

Moderate: Suicide attempt, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Adult/minor relationship, Death of parent, and Grief

keen's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Body horror, Emotional abuse, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Child abuse, Infidelity, Miscarriage, and Murder

Minor: Drug abuse, Self harm, Trafficking, and Child death

ellekiriel's review

challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Violence, Emotional abuse, Miscarriage, Murder, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Gaslighting, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Panic attacks/disorders, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Self harm, and Toxic relationship

joy_ong's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Murder, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Misogyny, Violence, Death of parent, Death, Domestic abuse, Animal cruelty, Blood, Child death, Confinement, Grief, and Miscarriage

orizenda's review against another edition

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

4.5

A story about sisters and family with some fucked up stuff happening too. I was on Jacks side the whole time. Didn’t really like Rob that much until the end. I cried numerous times reading this.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Animal death, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, and Miscarriage

Moderate: Confinement, Addiction, and Adult/minor relationship

leahopkins's review against another edition

dark 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? Yes

5.0

I picked this book up more by chance, but I am really glad I did. It is less of a horror book and more of a slightly bizarre thriller with some paranormal tones (?), but it was still captivating from start to finish!
The characters are all very fleshed out and layered, they are all pretty unlikable (except maybe Mia), and literally none of them are good people. Still, you can understand why they do the shit they do (to some extent at least), so that made me hate them less.
There are so many themes/images used again throughout the story (mirrors, maggots, clocks) which made the whole writing very cohesive. The author was also very good at leaving small clues everywhere (especially in the Arrowood chapters), but mixing them up with red herrings. I was so captured, putting tabs on everything I thought was important to the plot, and writing down all my new theories. Most of them were wrong. But I loved going through all of my notes again and understanding what they were really alluding to.
Most of the twists were very surprising, but made so much sense at the same time (I said "ohhhh" way too many times). The only twist I really didn't like was the last one (

aka Annie being the evil child and not Callie

), I felt like it undid a lot of what the author had established before. I almost lowered the rating because of this, but since it was literally just in the last chapter, I decided to just pretend like it never happened. At some points, I also thought the overall topic of what is happening at Sundial seemed a little far-fetched, but reading the Author's note and seeing it was based on actual events, I feel like that critique can't hold itself. Overall, there were a couple of those little moments where I thought "is this realistic?", so maybe 5 stars is a little too generous of me, but I really, really enjoyed the reading experience, so I feel like they are justified.

 

Also I have a theory I will not budge on and that I just need to put out somewhere: Callie kept talking about Rob touching her eyes as if adjusting contact lenses, even though she doesn't wear them. And in one chapter, it says something about Rob thinking about getting coloured contacts and just continue living as Jack. I don't care what anyone says, I think Rob is actually Jack who just pretends to be Rob, because Rob was killed by 23. I will die on that hill. 

PS: please note the content warnings because there are a lot!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Murder, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Animal death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Animal cruelty, and Violence

Moderate: Drug use, Miscarriage, Infidelity, and Mental illness

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Panic attacks/disorders

bxnnny's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Drug abuse, Infidelity, Trafficking, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Child death, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Self harm, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, Gaslighting, Violence, and Pregnancy