Reviews with content warning for Violence - Winterset Hollow

Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Winterset Hollow by Jonathan Edward Durham

44 reviews

leacgreenwood's review

3.0

adventurous challenging dark tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

this book was a bit too violent for my taste. I loved the other themes in this book but this was incredibly gory and made me a little uncomfortable, rather than scared.

Content Warnings

melmentomori's review against another edition

4.5

dark emotional funny reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

A truly unsettling twist on a classic sub-genre of horror. Written by one of my favorite online personalities, I loved the wit and humor woven throughout. While sometimes it felt like the main trio might speak a little too similarly, it was a language I enjoyed and would happily continue reading.

I would argue that all the primary characters were lovable, if not always complex— even the ones that were truly horrifying. They demonstrated the range of reactions that grief can produce, growing deep roots that sprout very different personalities. Since no one gets to pick how the grieve, I appreciated this range because I could relate to each of them to some degree. I was truly sorry to say goodbye to them by finishing the book.

While not as tightly-formed in some respects as it could have been, this is easily one of my new favorite books. It is because I loved this book, that I feel like addressing the parts I found challenging. These did not undermine my overall enjoyment of the book, but represent the ways this is evidently a first work for the author. Not having finished a single story in my entire life, I'd say he's still miles ahead of whatever criticisms I can level. Mild spoilers ahead.

Eamon's Fickle Survival Instincts: Being an unwilling survivalist, I would've liked to have seen his "training" kick into place more thoroughly. Caught in several near-death instances, he was always a bit too willing to leave his mortal coil behind. One of the best parts of "final girls" is the transformation from vulnerable to powerful, and while Eamon does have some growth in this direction, it wasn't as fully-fledged as I would prefer.
Deus Ex Machina (Kind Of): Speaking of near-death instances, Eamon was often saved just in time by one entity or another. And when I say "often", I mean about half a dozen times. This feels like an issue that could've been better resolved if his development arc had been more complete.
Crying War: There was one specific description that was used over and over. When one character bellows a war cry, it invariably described as "cries war". It's a great description— once. After that it's just repetitive.
Failed Bechtel: Not unusual, but still a little frustrating that the characters were overwhelmingly male. Of the female characters, only two had real roles in the story vs. the six primary male characters.

As a sub-note, there was an allusion to "children" and the world outside of the island that was not fully resolved. While it might be a little tricky, I could see a sequel possibility and I'm wondering if that is why this small thread was left. If so, I'm all in. Happy Barley Day to all.

Content Warnings

leahrae_93's review

2.0

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

2 stars for the concept and absolutely nothing else. I wish I could like this book, this could have been great if it wasn’t written like a fifth grader found a thesaurus. The first half is especially bad at this and the last half is littered with grammatical errors that editing should have caught.
The three main characters are not really likable. The main character Eamon wanted to have depth but I just didn’t jive with the writing so it was hard for me to accept.
Mark is the typical “jock who doesn’t know any better but to antagonize” and is obnoxious for it. His best pages are at the end.
Caroline is a token POC woman who yells the most out of everyone and is the only one who uses slang. I’ll note that none of the other characters had very distinct voices. Whenever you read a line of dialogue without context you have little idea on who’s speaking. Notably, though, none of the other characters use terms like “gotta”, “outta”, and “gonna” but Caroline. And even when shit starts going down and people start yelling at each other periodically, she is the only one who is constantly yelling. Nearly ervery sentence of hers is ended with either “!” Or “?!” in the last half of the book. It read like a caricature to me.

Content Warnings

mossymage's review

5.0

dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

camam4's review against another edition

3.0

dark tense 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: No

Content Warnings

gabster41's review

4.25

adventurous dark mysterious reflective 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

Content Warnings

stupidpiscesguy's review

4.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

maryalex622's review

4.25

challenging dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book was fantastic, but it wasn’t surprising in the least. No plot twists that weren’t obvious extremely early in the book, but that doesn’t matter.

I saw one review that said it had too much “unnecessary flowery language,” but that’s exactly what I loved most about it. All this horrible stuff is happening, but it’s written in such an oddly poetic way, I couldn’t stop reading it. I made countless highlights simply because I loved how a certain sentence was worded, and I’m actually tempted to get the audiobook to see how it would sound read aloud. Not to mention that a lot of the banter was downright funny.

Overall, it was a great book, and the ONLY reason I didn’t rate it higher is because everything that happened WAS so expected. If the story had been more surprising or the twist been less alluded so that it would’ve been truly shocking, it would’ve scored higher, but it was still a fantastically flowery massacre.

Content Warnings