Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall

19 reviews

bbayless96's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

“That’s the thing about trust, isn’t it?” Ethan says. “You gather all the evidence you can, use your brain, weigh character and past actions. But the final inch of it— that’s faith. Trust means believing in someone. It’s not just a conclusion. It’s a choice.” 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Body horror, Suicide attempt, Death, Murder, Mental illness, Suicide, and Violence

Minor: Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Self harm, Toxic relationship, Addiction, Alcoholism, Suicide attempt, and Toxic friendship

keelywmson's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective 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? Yes

4.25

I really enjoyed this book! I read it in a day on the way to and from Chicago for C2E2. To be fair, I enjoy a medium paced book more than a lot of people but the emotional/psychological intrigue was enough to keep me engaged until the plot twists started to hit. And they do come one after another. Over all, very enjoyable. I was pleasantly surprised with the types of twists and though I’m not usually a fan of an open ending, this one didn’t bother me the way they normally would. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Mental illness

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Murder, Death, Alcohol, Suicide, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Infidelity, Body horror, Adult/minor relationship, and Domestic abuse

coliescorner's review against another edition

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Suicide attempt, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, Murder, Gun violence, and Blood

Moderate: Alcohol, Cursing, Body horror, and Mental illness

Minor: Vomit, Cancer, Rape, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual assault, and Suicidal thoughts

unicornofthesea's review against another edition

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Murder, Violence, Suicide, Gun violence, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Body horror, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Death, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Ableism, Abandonment, Infidelity, Alcoholism, Classism, Death of parent, and Medical content

Minor: Stalking, Gaslighting, Cancer, and Child abuse

taylorthiel's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• 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: Gore and Body horror

Moderate: Racism

Minor: Sexual content

abundance_of_fiction's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective 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

4.25

This book was a great start to 2024. Both mystical and mysterious, this novel does a great job of bringing you into this the convoluted mess that has occurred.  While you can semi-predict elements of the novel, it does not take away from the feeling of the eventual reveal. Naomi is the perfect protagonist, in that she is anything but perfect. The unreliable memories, character perspective, and storytelling leads to the culmination of a story that you both see coming and yet didn’t. Without spoilers, this story was a great read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Death, Torture, Rape, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Suicide attempt, Grief, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, Body horror, Child death, Gore, Sexual assault, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Kidnapping, and Murder

abhirupa's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

I really thought this was going to be a cut and dry murder mystery, "we did something bad when we were younger and now it's coming back to bite us in the ass", kind of story. I was very pleasantly surprised by how the plot ended up resolving. Almost every character introduced was at one point a red herring and also a major player in the conspiracy. There were many different plot twists and almost all were executed without any major plot holes. This was a super fun and quick read and I would recommend to anyone in a reading slump.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Blood, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Body horror, Toxic friendship, Alcoholism, and Adult/minor relationship

hannahcstocks's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Murder, Stalking, Medical content, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Suicide attempt, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Kidnapping, Gun violence, Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Medical trauma, Sexual assault, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Minor: Cancer and Death of parent

meeklovestoread'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? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I've seen this book all over bookstagram with rave reviews on how good and twisty it was and it was plumped with a lot of my favorite thrillers so best believe I was excited when I finally got my hands on it. Well, sadly this book fell flat for me.

It took until we got pasted the first 100 pages for me to actually get excited about what was going on. 

aka Noami they found that Liv died and now she's trying to pick up where Liv left off 

After that, that's when I think the story actually picked up. And I was pretty interested. I was finally seeing what people were talking about, but that feeling was later shot (no pun intended considering what happens 😂) the last 50-ish pages. 

The twist that it had been Liv that stabbed Naomi was very underwhelming and quite frankly made me upset. I thought we were past stigmatizing mentally ill people as violent psychotic potential killers. I'm glad the author later corrected this assumption.

 

I also, guess many of the twists. 

I wasn't surprised when we found out that Ethan was AJ and that Cass was involved in the end, and that she manipulated Liv into stabbing Noami and then took it upon herself to finish the job. I do have to admit I didn't guess that Cody would be involved and that he accidentally killed Jessi.

This usually isn't a factor in how I rated books. I don't really care if a thriller is predictable as long as I'm having a good time and the suspense is good, however, due to how much this thriller was hyped I was expecting the twists to be mind-blowing so I was highly disappointed which made for a not-so-good reading experience in the end. Lowkey felt like the author added these twists for the sake of their being a big twist. I just don't think it correlated with the story well. I also felt like the ending was a bit rushed.

Now, I didn't hate this book by any means. It has a lot of entertaining components and a decent amount of suspense to make you want to know more. However, if you read this I don't want you to go in expecting anything crazy or phenomenal. I feel like if you're looking for a basic thriller with a decent amount of suspense and a not-so-crazy plot twist then you may consider giving the book a try. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Death, and Murder

Moderate: Mental illness, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, Adult/minor relationship, Gun violence, Sexual assault, Suicide, Rape, Alcohol, Grief, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Toxic relationship, Violence, Infidelity, Medical content, Cancer, Child abuse, Blood, Body horror, Cursing, Pedophilia, Sexual content, and Suicide attempt

loismarissa_'s review against another edition

dark 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

This book has so many twists and turns that you don’t expect. It’s a real mystery and keeps you on the edge of your seat. At parts it feels like it falls flat but then there’s another twist the hook you back in 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Gun violence, Blood, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, Body horror, Suicide, and Murder

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Self harm, Alcoholism, Mental illness, and Toxic friendship