Reviews tagging 'Self harm'

Winterset Hollow by Jonathan Edward Durham

27 reviews

gabography's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense 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

4.75

wow, what a read. for the first time in years, i finished this book in 36 hours. it was that engrossing to me. 
what an honestly bonkers concept turned out to be such a dark, fast paced, and surprisingly moving story written in a lovely prose that i can only imagine comes from the very stories that inspired the ensemble of not-so-cuddly creatures (some reviews did not care for that and some even called it pretentious, but i see what the author was going for and i loved it).
truly the only reason why this book doesn't earn a perfect five is due to the human characters, except for the one girl in the group named caroline who i liked a lot. to keep it as spoiler-free as possible because this book should be read blind, i found the main character to be the male equivalent of a mary sue at times, in the sense that you can tell he was the apple of the author's eye and had to be the most specialest lil guy of all the guys in the story, which felt a bit :/ as the story went on. while he was interesting and you feel for him, it all lining up the way it did just made me wish there was more there than just something that felt very "ope, he was special the whole time! surprise everyone!" like... okay. his male friend was also very one-note, left to be nothing more than the bumbling himbo sidekick who makes the main character look ever so clever and special in comparison.  if not for his bravery and care for caroline and their relationship tugging at my heart, i would not care for him at all. 
other than that, the world, the animal characters and their plight, the theme of trauma and loss and grief, all of it made for such a unique story that i know is going to stay with me. peter rabbit and friends are already looking a little more suspicious.

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kayteslibrary's review

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

3.5


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ilaxaria's review

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes

4.5


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rivercat0338's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-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

3.75

The author's prose style is a lot. The story is worth pushing through if you can, however. 

I wish the owls' part was explained better, and how Gene fits in. There's no way he doesn't have some idea of what was going on if
people you take out to a "deserted" island routinely vanish
.

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ocean_in_a_teardrop's review

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.5

Flackwell and Runny were lovers and you cannot change my mind on that.

Overall, I loved this book! Even though there were sentences and phrases were hard to understand at times due to their wording, some questions left unanswered that I would have loved answers for, as well as the ability of characters both human and animal to survive the seemingly impossible after graphic injuries that should've killed them, the rest of this book absolutely makes up for these failings.

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ssummar's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75


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kathijo63's review

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adventurous dark emotional sad 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? It's complicated

4.0

This is a difficult book to review.  It's not what I was expecting. I follow the author on social media and he is quite funny!  I knew the book wasn't a comedy but I was sort of expecting that to come through somehow.  The book is part fairy tale, part fantasy (talking animals), part horror, but also draws parallels to the treatment in the US of indigenous peoples.  I was enchanted, horrified, and ultimately felt deep sympathy for the residents of Addington Isle.

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gondorgirl's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense 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? It's complicated

5.0


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franzys_whip's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Literally beautiful book. Think The Most Dangerous Game but like 10 times better (at least imo). Covers topics of colonialism (in sort of a fictional way but still) and being haunted by your past so well. Lighthearted/funny moments never felt forced or out of place, and there aren't so many of them in the hunt bits to make it lessen the sense of danger. Characters had so much depth and I loved every minute of it.

A teeny tiny bit slow in the beginning. Just a little. Coming from a person who reads pretty fast-paced books most of the time though, it's really not that bad.

#edward addington needs to choke on a bag of rotten horse dicks #olivia did nothing wrong #fuck manifest destiny and all of its consequences

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deebot's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-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

5.0


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