Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Hemlock Island by Kelley Armstrong

15 reviews

starcrossreverie's review

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-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

4.0

Loved it!

This would've been a 5 stars if the epilogue had been different. I was hoping for a years later timeskip instead of a week later one.

I was not a fan of the beginning. The only thing that kept me going was my love for thrillers taking place in secluded locations. I didn't like the tension between Laney and Kit until they actually started talking about what happened.

The spirit of the island was a damn interesting twist that I loved a lot! I just wish the epilogue had been a years later one so we can see how Laney handled living trapped on the island with the spirit and how her loved ones lives were affected by her oath.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Sexual assault and Rape

meganhart92's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Violence, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Death, and Blood

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Toxic friendship, Grief, and Gaslighting

Minor: Abandonment, Rape, Sexual assault, Racism, Sexism, Sexual violence, Pandemic/Epidemic, Outing, Lesbophobia, and Homophobia

aimee_streif's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Minor: Self harm, Death, Death of parent, Cancer, Adult/minor relationship, Murder, Sexual assault, Torture, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail

coyotes_tiptoe's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• 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

Moderate: Rape and Sexual assault

Minor: Cancer

edsbian's review against another edition

emotional mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.5

A solid novel with enjoyable characters, rich dynamics, casual representation, and a really lovely and unexpected series of twists and turns. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Rape, Sexual assault, and Racism

chemistress's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Blood

Moderate: Rape and Sexual assault

blacksphinx's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

1.5

This book doesn't feel like a horror novel to me but a thriller (a genre I dislike).

- Despite being in first person, there is a key conversation that happens early on where the subject is completely hidden from the reader and is used as a twist later on. There's another section where a character completely tunes out important information that doesn't get retold for along time. It felt like the book was trying to outsmart or trick me?

- Characters jump to mind-numbingly stupid explanations for what is occurring instead of acknowledging the obvious. Like, a character will make a correct inference about something and then spend paragraphs to chapters convincing themselves that isn't the truth, only for it to be revealed they were correct the first time.

How on earth did the protagonist convince herself the body of a grown man that fell on top of her was some wild animal corpse?!

- Information we discover (after characters finally let themselves understand the obvious) is then constantly repeated to us like we're too stupid to recall a thing that happened a chapter ago. 

- Despite being structured like a mystery/thriller, there is no foreshadowing of what the truth is. Especially when after over half a book of these characters gibbering their way through the most stupid and outlandish of ideas, they eventually hit on something mostly-correct that sounds just as dumb and outlandish as everything else. I literally didn't realize that was the truth until about 90% of the way through the book.

- Most of this book is focused on domestic drama that has almost nothing to do with the actual plot and they don't overlap well thematically.

My previous poor experience with thrillers have left me with the feeling the genre is about deceiving the reader by keeping important information from them and pulling out an entire clown handkerchief of twists until the remaining answer is something you could never logically guess. And that's how I feel about this novel. It feels like the author was twirling a proverbial mustache going "you THOUGHT this was a thriller, but it's actually a HORROR novel! I tricked you ha ha!" and it's sad and poorly done. The extra half star is because I did actually like the way it shakes out in the end, where the protagonist actually develops half a brain. (Sadly, the book then has an epilogue that it really, REALLY didn't need.)

(PS: This book gets GORY.) 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Blood, Grief, Death, Toxic friendship, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Homophobia, Gore, and Murder

Moderate: Gaslighting, Racism, Pandemic/Epidemic, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Rape, Animal cruelty, Vomit, Biphobia, Sexual assault, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Infertility and Cancer

Dismemberment, Victim Blaming, Slut Shaming, Homophobic Slur. It's a spoiler but a lot of the novel moves around a backstory where

rape is committed by a college student on a blacked-out minor resulting in pregnancy; the girl is accused of lying and looses most of her friends.

jennwendy's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

Very gory, but well done. Gets a bit wild and over the top, but I wasn’t mad about it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Sexual assault, Death, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, Gore, Body horror, Blood, and Racism

rainbowfairie's review

dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

I read this book in two days—a proper reading marathon. It’s a page-turner that I could not put down. Woke up excited to read again. I did not expect the resolution to unfold how it did—the author did a good job with originality and tying up loose ends. 
There is quite vivid descriptions of gorey/gruesome injury. I really felt as if I was on Hemlock Island. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Sexual violence, Pandemic/Epidemic, Grief, Lesbophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic friendship, Sexual assault, Murder, Blood, Body horror, Adult/minor relationship, Death, Transphobia, Toxic relationship, Rape, and Pregnancy

missdanielle's review

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Violence, Death, Body horror, Gore, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Sexual assault