Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Sundial by Catriona Ward

85 reviews

bookish_af's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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aformeracceleratedreader's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad medium-paced

4.0

Please check trigger/content warnings. 
Quite enjoyed this. The twists and turns kept me interested along with the sister dynamic. Will def be checking out more from the author. 
If you choose to listen to audio with the ebook, just a heads-up some wording is different from each other. Minor differences but could potentially throw someone off 

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noemi_qu's review

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

3.0


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eggplantia5's review

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challenging dark emotional tense fast-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? Yes

3.5

A creepy and tense exploration into families and sisterhood mixed with a little spookiness and science.  A perfect read near Halloween.


Everyone is kind of the villain, (except Callie), but everyone is also trying their best. You don't really get to know Irving and find out why he's so terrible, although maybe just being a white male from a rich family is enough characterization?

The story unfolds well, even when I thought I figured out the twists in advance, there was additional color that made the payoff satisfying.


Borrowed from library, could see myself buying in the future.

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illtakethenightshiftx's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I wasn’t expecting to love this as much as I did because I wasn’t the biggest fan of The Last House on Needless Street, but I enjoyed Sundial immensely. It’s weird, foreboding, eerie, and heart wrenching. 

I like a dual POV and it extremely effective in this story and really sucked me in - I read the last half of this book in one night. This book is DARK and it just gets darker as the story progresses and the ending will both crush you and possibly make you feel like Dani at the end of Midsommar.

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livlamentloathe's review against another edition

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

4.0

Until Rob and Callie got to Sundial and the flashback story started, I thought this was going to be an ableist story about mental illness. But it’s not that simple. It’s twisty in an unpredictable way. There’s enough going on that I was tricked into not knowing what would happen next! I’m typically ahead of the twist and find myself disappointed to have been right. But book isn’t about “a twist.” It’s not even a multitude of twists, although kinda. It’s a whole lot of fucked up normality that stewed in the heated desert of Sundial until finally… you know.

This was a very long book, and I wasn’t interested at turns. I put Baby Teeth down for the very reasons I didn’t enjoy the start of Sundial. But this story swerved past the ease of mom and daughter dislike each other. It kept going and going and going. When you think you know the truth, there’s still more buried. And ya know, isn’t that just the way (of people)? We’re all more complex than what others see us as. Callie doesn’t know everything about Rob, and Rob doesn’t know everything that is Callie, or Jack, or even Annie. The only simple thing is Irving. Trust a man to be violent and predictable. 

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booksandcoffeewithlexi's review

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

4.0


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emmyann2319's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book had some pretty great twists, I love trying to figure them out before they show up and I really enjoyed when the clues the author laid out from the beginning clicked. I think this one will be interesting to read again

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chena_reads_romance's review

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

3.0

This book starts off with a bang. It's eerie, weird, unsettling, gross, just what you like in a horror novel. But then just as I was getting into it, it takes a turn into a flashback that lasts 70% of the book...
It slows the novel down tremendously. And I get why the flashback is there, it's necessary to the plot and understand the current situation the characters face, but it's so slow and a bit uninteresting. Not to mention that it's full of animal abuse, animal torture, and animal murder! I wouldn't have even picked the book up if I knew that was one of the themes. 
Regardless, I think the book is genuinely written well and is coherent and the characters are interesting! Irving is trash and I love to hate him, Rob is super complex and I love reading about her, I wish I knew more about Callie and saw even more of her story.
So overall I give it 3⭐️
It's an okay read

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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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