Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

Die leuchtenden Toten by Caitlin Starling

26 reviews

bsmucker's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Drug use, Confinement, Suicidal thoughts, Body horror, Panic attacks/disorders, Death, Medical trauma, Self harm, and Abandonment

Moderate: Stalking, Toxic relationship, and Cursing

ladyinverse's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Abandonment, Body horror, Vomit, and Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Medical trauma, Medical content, Emotional abuse, and Mental illness

talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

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? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Death, Body horror, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gore, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Medical content, Gaslighting, Drug use, Panic attacks/disorders, Medical trauma, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Animal death, Murder, Abandonment, Vomit, and Classism

Minor: Suicide and Excrement

Nonconsensual drugging, loss of bodily autonomy. Overdose. Hallucinations, paranoia, surveillance, unreality. Descriptions of bodies in various states of decay. Limb loss.

sargasso_c's review against another edition

adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

The writing was very good, but as a whole the book rambled. It would start threads, abandon them for chapters and chapters, and then hurriedly try to tie them up when the main character was nearing the natural end of their journey. Contradictingly, some major plot points were not foreshadowed properly.

Even so - the writing style was quite enjoyable and this isn't at all bad for a debut novel.

The wlw representation was extremely satisfying to read, and I'm delighted that none of the conflicts centered around the queerness of the main characters.

I'm interested in reading more work from this author. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Death, and Classism

Moderate: Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Colonisation, Confinement, Death of parent, Mental illness, Body horror, Drug use, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Vomit

Minor: Gaslighting

motaki's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-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

4.25

The atmosphere and the premise were great, I liked this book even if its pace dragged a little bit much and Gyre was one of the most unlikeable MCs I've ever read. 
I think it was one third longer than it should have been 

I know the author decided to go heavy on repetition for that "she is spiraling so bad" effect but all those dialogues and allucination just made it harder to sympathise with Gyre.
I can't stand indecisive people IRL, that's why her incessant doubts and back and forth to act one way or another left me frustrated.

Without those issues it would have been a definite 5 star read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Vomit, Grief, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Medical trauma, and Death of parent

fictionalportal's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Coming back to add to this review almost eight months after reading the book because I still think about this story. It's an absolutely haunting meditation on grief and the havoc it can wreak on the human psyche. Safe to say I never left the cave besties <3

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide attempt, Confinement, Medical trauma, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gore, Body horror, Drug abuse, Drug use, Grief, Vomit, Emotional abuse, and Suicidal thoughts

boglord's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Body horror, Drug use, Toxic friendship, Vomit, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Grief, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, and Confinement

Moderate: Gaslighting, Colonisation, Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Mental illness, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

charley34's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Mental illness, Abandonment, Confinement, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Toxic relationship, Blood, Death, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Physical abuse

dusty_mothman's review against another edition

challenging mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Gore, Medical trauma, and Suicide

booksthatburn's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-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? It's complicated

5.0

THE LUMINOUS DEAD is dense, claustrophobic, atmospheric horror, dripping with details. It builds a miasma of uncertainty by describing what the MC thinks happened then sometimes admitting that she was wrong, rarely revealing if her guide was mistaken too. The first half lingers on meticulous detail of the path through the caves, so that later we will know why a missing cache is worthy of terror, why the thought of pressing on towards one camp or returning to another elicits a silent scream. It tells in pieces a small and personal history of death underground, the dependence on the only voice around, helplessness when chance, mistrust, and technological failure cause breaches in connection.

I’m finding that I really like this kind of quiet horror. Books where most of the story is just explaining literally what’s happening, but the horror is in what should be happening but isn’t, shouldn’t be happening but is, and the precariousness of having to trust other people about one’s own body, in contexts where it is difficult to control whether or not boundaries will be respected. It understands that gaslighting is isolating and terrifying, and the terror is in being almost sure, wrong once, right once, and then never again being quite certain of what’s really happening. Hallucinogenic substances, involuntarily ingested, may be involved, in various times and manners. 

I love this for many of the same reasons that I love Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. The settings are very different, but they have many tendrils of horror in common. If you like sci-fi and liked Mexican Gothic, you'll probably like this (and if you like The Luminous Dead and like aesthetic non-sci-fi horror, you'll probably like Mexican Gothic).

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Medical content, Death, Mental illness, Death of parent, Drug use, Excrement, Medical trauma, Gaslighting, Toxic relationship, and Grief