Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

It by Stephen King

302 reviews

junisam's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-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? No

3.5

Love the majority, but TW there’s weird sex stuff for very young characters. It parades itself as consensual, but the whole development feels super contrived and is a cop-out to justify a poor writing decision 🤮

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content

gretareadsbooks's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal cruelty and Animal death

underseawife's review against another edition

adventurous slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child death, Death, Hate crime, Homophobia, Suicide, Violence, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, and Alcohol

Minor: Hate crime, Sexual content, Grief, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

dkonstanzer's review against another edition

dark tense slow-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? No

3.75

The plot and characters are great, but the book itself (similar to many of King’s other works) is extremely slow-paced to the point of dragging on unnecessarily. The length allows for a great in-depth exploration of the characters, but there are certainly scenes that stretch longer than needed and add little to the plot. There is also something to be said about the author’s portrayal of women—this is a critique often heard when discussing Stephen King’s works, but while the women are certainly multifaceted and have diverse personalities, the objectification of Beverly Marsh specifically can be off-putting to those uncomfortable reading graphic sex scenes (I’d like to make it clear that I’m not referring to the objectification of her by the other characters, as men treating her as an object and her breaking free of those who hurt her is an incredibly poignant part of her character development—I’m more-so referring to the use of her by the author as a way to write unnecessary (and sometimes gross in the case of a particular scene from before the time skip to adults) sex scenes and the objectification of her body by the author himself). While a longtime tradition of horror in both written and visual media is the inclusion of naked and/or sexually exploited women without any sort of plot relevance, more recent takes on the genre have managed to steer away from it, so this type of content may be shocking to some who haven’t interacted much with older works yet (basically—this was written in 1986 and it shows). Overall, I’d call this a good read, and the author does a fairly good job of representing real-life issues in his characters’ development, but I’d recommend caution before diving in—this book is a beast, clocking in at over 1000 pages, and a number of the scenes can feel a little pointless and are hard to get through. While I’d definitely say reading is worth it (as it genuinely is well-crafted with deep characters and an interesting, well fleshed-out plot) it will take up a significant portion of time to read, and can at times be a bit of a drag. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child death, Domestic abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, and Suicide

Moderate: Ableism, Body shaming, Cursing, and Antisemitism

graphic sex scene between multiple children

carltonatasha's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad 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? It's complicated

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Hate crime, Homophobia, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Antisemitism, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Stalking, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Cultural appropriation, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

garmiet's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Hate crime, Homophobia, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Infertility, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Racism, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Infidelity

Not sure if pedophilia counts for The Scene near the end, because they’re all the same age. But it is graphic and they are all young.

dontquotekonthat's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny hopeful fast-paced

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

4.0

This was my first Stephen King and it was so much easier to read and so much more enjoyable than I ever expected. King managed to capture the joys of childhood and  friendship in youth in a way that whether you had many friends or none, you felt nostalgic for that time in your life. The alternating timelines were very well done and there way the beats of each timeline were matched and eventually flowed into each other helped the story roll along. And it also gave some weight to the overarching idea of recovering the magic of adolescence and the power of belief. There were about seven pages towards the end I’m pretending don’t exist and your man Mike felt a little forgotten at the end but all in all, a really great read. Perhaps not suitable for those who dislike gore but didn’t turn the stomach too much for fans of the genre. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Cursing, Death, Fatphobia, Gore, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, and Alcohol

rbritch's review against another edition

dark 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? No

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Violence, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Sexual content

Minor: Animal cruelty, Self harm, Suicide, and Fire/Fire injury

Group sexual content between children

roshnimc's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse and Child death

Moderate: Sexual content

loanie's review against another edition

adventurous 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? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This was definitely an interesting read. This was also my first Stephen King novel. With the huge page count, at times excessive detail, and multiple timelines, at times I wish this was split into two books. Start the first one with all the calls to the adults, then have the kids do their thing, then the second book should be adults with some flashbacks. A lot of part 5 continues to switch back and forth between timelines as the Losers are doing the same things, and at times it was just tough to keep track of what was happening in each year. I definitely think there was a lot of detail in this book too. I wasn’t a fan of the whole disturbing backstory we got of Hockstetter just for him to be killed off. Some of the stuff involving Tom was so graphic too. I was not expecting there to be some spicey moments in this book, as well as the scene with Beverly after they beat IT as kids, like that didn’t feel necessary to bring unity back to the group. I would say this time, the movies, specifically the more recent movies, were better and I feel told the story of the Losers and It better than the book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Violence