Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

Sundial by Catriona Ward

75 reviews

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

thebiblioborrower'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

reggiethebird's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.5

It's a thriller, alright. Vivid imagery throughout, and the plot twists and turns till the very last page. Plot twists can sometimes feel unearned, but I think here they were all reasonable, and nothing felt too out of place by the end.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Animal cruelty, Kidnapping, Gore, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Child abuse, Mental illness, Violence, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Toxic relationship, Addiction, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Animal death, Confinement, Death, and Trafficking

Moderate: Trafficking, Bullying, Gun violence, Self harm, and Vomit

amycgs's review

challenging dark emotional sad medium-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, and Domestic abuse

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

the_tea_collector22's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

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

1.75

While I enjoyed the twist at the end quite a bit because it had intentionally mislead me and subverted my expectations of the characters, damn was this book sooo slow the pay off  at the end almost doesn’t feel worth it. It was a struggle to get through at many moments, where the tension in the tone wasn’t taught enough to keep propelling me forward. It alternates perspectives and time where a good chunk of the book is retelling Rob’s life to Callie interspersed with their present day thoughts and feelings, but the retelling moments felt so long and drawn out to get to the meat of the story/ backstory. By the time we get to the end so much feels like filler (like the Arrowwood chapters never felt like they paid off for me, I still don’t get them), the book could’ve been cut down by 100 pgs and not lost what makes the twist at the end enjoyable- if anything it likely would make it more enjoyable since the pacing would be quicker. 

I think the concept was there, but the pacing was so slow and drawn out rather than punchy- if it was a more complicated storyline and punchy I think I would have liked it more. 
Also kind of wish the small cliff hanger at the end was given more resolution, but I also understand that being a stylistic choice. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death

Moderate: Miscarriage, Abandonment, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Physical abuse

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

erinbarton's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

1.5

i have never felt more catfished by a blurb in my entire life

while it is technically correct that some of the plot revolves around rob fearing her daughter callie, and her and callie travelling to their desert property, this is definitely not representative of the story. a more accurate description would be:

rob is trapped in a toxic marriage with her husband, irving. they have two young daughters, callie and annie. rob views annie as an angelic golden child, and struggles to connect to the precocious and seemingly troubled callie, who irving has manipulated to act out against rob. when rob fears callie wants to hurt her sister annie, rob takes callie to her childhood home in the desert, sundial, and recounts her  traumatic childhood growing up and being raised by hippy parents who carried out scientific experiments on dogs. 

i enjoyed the first 100 pages of this and was decently interested in the family dynamic and especially callie’s character. initially this was reminiscent of another family-centred psychological thriller which i had read and loved: sharp objects by gillian flynn. however, when the flashbacks to the past timeline began i really lost interest. the plot took such a bizarre turn and was from then on majority flashback of rob’s past. because of this, it quickly became clear that chapters from callie’s pov served no purpose other than to break up the super long account of rob’s past

i thought the whole concept of the genetically modified dog experiments were ridiculous, and the reveal that rob and jack had also had the same genetic experiment carried out on them because they had a “killer” gene was even more stupid. the book had even more twists/reveals after this all more stupid than the last: rob and jack were adopted as toddlers and had killed their birth mum after being locked in cages their entire lives up til then, callie can for some unexplained but also irrelevant reason see ghosts (and this is never once relevant to the plot), and the final reveal, annie was really the “evil” child all along and callie was simply trying to stop annie from hurting other people. all of these were beyond the realm of suspended disbelief and just lead to more questions. how did rob as a malnourished four year old manage to take her mother by surprise and physically overpower her enough to strangle her? why could callie see ghosts when there are no other paranormal elements involved in the book? how does a 9 year old annie have the cognitive and social development to convincingly manipulate every adult around her? just feels like the author threw a lot of shit at the wall to see what stuck and in fact none of it did <\spoiler>

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Physical abuse, and Miscarriage