Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher

9 reviews

witcheep's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-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? Yes

4.5

Horror usually isn't my thing, but liking T. Kingfisher's fantasy books, I decided to give this one a go. I'm glad I did!

Kingfisher is great with writing multidimensional characters with flaws of their own and their interpersonal relationships. That is what shines bright in this book as well. I enjoyed reading about the difficult relationships between the different generations of the same family, and their own ways to deal with mysteries and difficulties. The neighbors offer a good place to compare with the main character's life. A House with Good Bones ponders over some hard themes, such as loss of a family member and grief, doubting one's self-worth and emotionally abusive family relationships. The book, however, offers more hopeful outlooks on the same issues in the form of caring for one's community, forming new friendships and finding new insight into oneself.

The horror elements get increasiongly more creepy, from a slight feeling of something being off up to creeping uneasiness,

supernatural affairs, and slight body horror

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"You're a scientist," said Gail, watching me. "I realize that makes this hard for you. I'm telling you, what's happening isn't something you're going to be able to put under a microscope. I'm hoping it'll go away on it's own."
      "Does anything ever go away on it's own?" I asked.
      "More often than you think. In this case I truly can't be sure. I don't know everything.
     "I'm starting to be sure I don't know anything", I muttered.
     She smiles. "That's a good place to start."

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Grief, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Body horror, and Body shaming

Minor: Mental illness, Fire/Fire injury, Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, and Gaslighting

leeghlee's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Cursing

Moderate: Death of parent, Fatphobia, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Toxic relationship, Death, Emotional abuse, Murder, Physical abuse, Cannibalism, Fire/Fire injury, Violence, Alcohol, Body shaming, Gaslighting, and Grief

Minor: Medical content, Mental illness, Dementia, Sexual content, Child abuse, and Stalking

vixenreader's review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

An unsettling yet enjoyable read, this Southern Gothic story reflects on how nasty traditions and rotten ideologies can be lurking beneath the sweet-smelling rosebushes. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Fatphobia, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Toxic relationship, Torture, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Body horror, Body shaming, Child abuse, Cursing, and Death

Moderate: Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Xenophobia, Cannibalism, Gaslighting, Grief, Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, and Physical abuse

Minor: Vomit and Abandonment

Be warned that this book addresses generational trauma, C-PTSD due to abuse from a parental figure, abuses with the occult, parental neglect, swarms of insects, and one mention of semen in the occult ritual.

zakura317's review against another edition

adventurous lighthearted reflective fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Body horror, Confinement, and Blood

Minor: Fatphobia, Misogyny, Death of parent, Body shaming, Grief, Racism, and Cursing

plantgal_jill's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcohol, Mental illness, Fatphobia, Injury/Injury detail, and Blood

Minor: Child abuse, Dementia, Physical abuse, Racism, Death of parent, and Stalking

aileron's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious 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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and Body horror

Moderate: Body shaming and Fatphobia

Minor: Racism, Child abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Emotional abuse, and Physical abuse

tigger89's review against another edition

mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Anything by T. Kingfisher is an auto-request for me, at this point. I love that woman's imagination. A creepy southern gothic, while less fantastic than her previous stories I'd read, is still right up my alley. And I loved the narrator! She was a joy to ride around with, whether she was snarking about the wifi or nerding out about bugs. As someone who's around the same age as Sam, I could relate heavily to her anxieties regarding her aging mother. The finale was also incredible, keeping tension high from the moment Sam stepped back into the house until the matter was resolved.

Unfortunately, overall I didn't like this book as much as Kingfisher's other two. Perhaps it was the genre shift, the addition of teased romantic tension between our intrepid protagonist and the sexy gardener, or the fact that a large part of the story's build-up could have been skipped if the protagonist and her mother had just had That Conversation at any point before the story was two-thirds of the way over. But that doesn't mean it's bad! The bar was just set very high, is all.

Now, the most important question: do the vultures and/or ladybugs die?

There is a committee of vultures, one named and many unnamed. All survive to the end of the story. There are also many, many ladybugs. Unfortunately, some of the ladybugs get squashed in the course of the story, but the majority of them survive.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcohol, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, and Fatphobia

Minor: Racism, Animal death, Child death, and Dementia

Anyone with a fear of bugs should be aware there's multiple scenes involving swarms of ladybugs crawling around and on the point of view character.

jessereadsthings's review against another edition

mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

2.0

Interesting concept, but was unfortunately just not that interesting in execution.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, and Fatphobia

Moderate: Racism

booksthatburn's review against another edition

mysterious reflective 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

5.0

In A HOUSE WITH GOOD BONES, Sam is visiting her mother in the home they once shared with her now-deceased grandmother. However, most of the ways Sam's mother had decorated to make the place her own have been undone, and she doesn’t seem to understand or acknowledge why this would be disturbing. Little things start to add up, eventually going beyond what’s merely bizarre - transforming into something downright creepy. 

Because as a reader this is my introduction to Sam’s mother, it’s harder to immediately know how she ought to be acting, but Sam’s thoughts provide that context in a way that feels natural. It feels like Sam working through it in her own mind, and not just for the benefit of me as a spectator. This is one of those cases where the things that I like best about the book are the ways that my understanding of of what's going on suddenly shifted as new information became available. It's short enough that to discuss most of what I loved in the latter half of the book would spoil many of the best parts of the experience. In general, I like the way that this played with my expectations of what a horror novel could or should be. There were several layers of revelations that didn't really feel like plot twists, as much as they involved realizing the meaning of information that had been said previously, but was transformed by new events. 

I love the ending, that ramps up the pace and the stakes to be suddenly exciting just as everything looked like it was going to wrap up more calmly.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Blood, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Racism, Violence, Death, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Body horror, and Self harm

Minor: Body shaming, Cancer, Dementia, Fatphobia, Vomit, Mental illness, and Alcohol