Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Wonderland by Jennifer Hillier

5 reviews

creepycrawlybookworm's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Murder, Kidnapping, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Mental illness, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Grief, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Deadnaming, and Pedophilia

Minor: Transphobia and Fatphobia

traa's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Toxic friendship, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Gun violence, Sexual harassment, and Stalking

Moderate: Child abuse, Blood, Bullying, Child death, Cursing, Deadnaming, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Rape, Suicide, Transphobia, Vomit, Excrement, Infidelity, Alcohol, Cancer, Abortion, Physical abuse, Grief, Homophobia, Police brutality, and Alcoholism

Minor: Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Outing, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Mass/school shootings, Pregnancy, Slavery, and Fatphobia

covublitz's review

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

2.0

ICK. I like the general idea of this book (

serial killer in a theme park

), but omg. 
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The trigger warning list for this book is a mile long (it would have been shorter to select what’s NOT in it), and it is WILDLY problematic. Characters are horribly unlikeable and should certainly all be in prison. The casual homophobia and transphobia are disgusting, as is the graphic and frequent pedophilia . Main character runs around with a victim mentality when she’s one of the worst of the bunch. Honestly, if they had all died I would have cheered. 
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Two stars only because I couldn’t figure out the killer right away (

thought it was going to be the original park owner/child molester and faked his death in the fire so he could continue to kidnap teenage boys and lock them in the sex dungeon he built under the park — nope. Turned out to be an incel revenge plot because the new sexual predator/CEO had rejected this dude when he got too old to be her type, so he kidnapped all the people that aged out of her abuse, put them in the OG sex dungeon because they weren’t good enough for her anyway, and murdered them when he ran out of space and needed to go grab someone else.

).
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Picked it up for a horror/thriller bookclub. Hate-read my way through it, then took a really long, hot shower to get the ick off my skin. This book sticks with you, and not in a good way.  Do not recommend. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Gaslighting, Police brutality, Rape, Sexism, Adult/minor relationship, Death, Mental illness, Confinement, Pedophilia, Stalking, and Violence

Moderate: Death of parent, Gun violence, Torture, and Homophobia

Minor: Domestic abuse, Suicide, and Transphobia

ainrosle's review

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

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

5.0

This book has been sitting on my TBR for the past year & I'm glad this book club had pushed me to pick it up! It's also my first (but DEFINITELY not last) book from Jennifer Hillier. 

I'll admit and say that going into the book, I was not exactly excited but the writing and the plot-driven story sucked me in ways I didn't expect and I LOVED IT!!!! 

I do agree on some of the comments here about the sex scenes, felt it was a bit too much but that aside, this book was FUN, SICK RIDE! :roller_coaster: a 5 stars for me ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Body horror, and Sexual content

goodgollymissmollee's review

2.75

The premise of this sounded really interesting to me. Carnivals, circuses, amusement parks are all settings i really enjoy. However, this book…. Was not it. The majority of the plot points revolves around an older woman taking advantage of teenage boys (18, but still wildly inappropriate since there was a power dynamic) but then they a full on 18yo man kiss one of our main characters who is FOURTEEN. And it’s not portrayed as predatory or problematic. Like yeah he says “you’re too young, I forgot” after the kiss but it’s just glossed over???? Like okay gross.

There’s also some very uncomfortably worded sex scenes that were minor infractions but still bothered me and grossed me out. 

And I’m mad at the reveal cause the villain was the only character I actually liked. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Child abuse, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Confinement, Death, Grief, Violence, Toxic relationship, and Murder

Moderate: Transphobia, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Rape