Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Fairy Tale by Stephen King

15 reviews

anastashamarie's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful lighthearted slow-paced

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

3.5

🏰 This feels like someone gave Stephen King the "write a popular fairy tale as a modern day story" prompt that we all got in creative writing class in high school and he just ran with it for 600 pages.

🗡️ There's objectively nothing wrong with this, expect that the pacing slow. (So slow that I--as someone who strictly listens to audiobooks no faster 1.35x because I like to be immersed in the inflection and voice acting--had to bump this sucker up to 2x to be able to get through it.) 

🐕‍🦺 Charlie is a well-rounded character, whose motivations totally hit hard...as I, too, would risk life and limb to get even just a little more time with my dog. The "other" world was as immersive as I would hope. The relationships appropriately tugged at my heart strings. And yet...

🧌 This was such a standard chosen one hero's tale. Prototypical, in fact. More a homage to fairy tales than a new and original one. At such a hulking tome from a well-loved author (who has created some of my favorite stories ever), I just expected more I guess. 

🎒 Listen, I'm not my any means mad that I read this (I enjoyed it a lot and have even recommended it to a few people already), but I also don't think it added anything to my life either. This was just really and truly fine. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Gun violence, and Blood

Moderate: Animal death, Grief, Death of parent, and Alcoholism

Minor: Murder and Torture

Old sick dog's decline described through most of the book. The dog

does not

die.

vixenreader's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

Despite some ableism found in the villains (especially in how ugly appearances are equated with ugly personalities) and some of the reversal of the curse hinges on some disabilities being somewhat reverted, this book is still a dark, exciting reminder that sacrifice and loss of innocence is essential to creating a happy ending. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Cursing, Gore, Alcoholism, Alcohol, War, Blood, Torture, Violence, Death, Addiction, Ableism, Body horror, Body shaming, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Slavery, and Excrement

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Fatphobia, Medical content, Car accident, Gun violence, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Kidnapping, Police brutality, Animal death, Death of parent, Mental illness, Toxic friendship, and Bullying

Minor: Racism and Sexual content

Be prepared for decaying bodies, half-dead soldiers, and said soldiers exploding. There is also some ableism in terms of how little people are treated in the text.

lukerik's review against another edition

medium-paced

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

1.0

Just awful. 

The protagonist grows up as a hero with one of a thousand faces, but only begins to realise it when he discovers a portal to a fairy tale world in an old man’s shed. The opening’s actually pretty good. Quite meta, but not too much. 

The problems begin when he goes through the portal and finds himself in the flimsiest, dullest fantasy world world you could imagine. OK, fine: it’s not as bad as Wizard and Glass, but not far off. An undeveloped world is fine in a real fairy tale, but this is a 600 page novel that needs to be a short story. So boring. I actually had to skip a bit. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Violence, Ableism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Chronic illness, Death of parent, Gore, Gun violence, Murder, Death, and Injury/Injury detail

thebookishbugg's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Cancer, Gore, and Death

Minor: Car accident and Cursing

e1olson's review against another edition

adventurous funny hopeful inspiring mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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

Moderate: Animal death

Minor: Animal cruelty