Reviews tagging 'Death'

Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

40 reviews

jaedia's review

Did not enjoy

the paedophile perspective. At all. Why? I'm sure something comes of it later but ew

. The writing style was fine enough to read but the story itself just felt too mundane and I couldn't get interested. None of the characters were interesting to me, or loveable. Even when

the vampire attacks somebody

there was no excitement there, I didn't feel gripped, no suspense. I was just bored. Decided not to waste my time further. It may well pick up but many books to read, little time!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, Blood, Murder, Pedophilia, Suicide attempt, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Body shaming, Child death, and Fatphobia

cousinrachel's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

The movie (Swedish original) had a much more "spare" plot with fewer characters and tangents--better for it, I think. My goodness, this book was all over the place--I think I read it about ten years ago but IIRC, 1/2 of the plot was about Oskar and Eli, the rest being side characters doing god knows what.

Also, the violence was gratuitous beyond belief, to the point of being ludicrous. My lord. Did we need that much information about the

alcoholic pedophile

?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Death, Bullying, Violence, Rape, Pedophilia, and Sexual violence

A homeless, alcoholic man sexually abuses a child prostitute whose pimp has knocked out his front teeth. This man later develops an attraction to a different child, a vampire, becomes devoted to the child and enslaves himself to finding victims. When he ceases to be useful the child eats him, but he doesn't fully die and becomes a zombie-vampire. The zombie man then rapes the child.

The vampire child murders several people in order to eat them: she tricks someone into thinking she is injured so that the person tries to help and lets his guard down, enabling the child to kill him. A woman survives an attack only to become a vampire herself, and later sets herself on fire to avoid harming anyone else. Her fiance seeks revenge for her against the vampire, who overpowers and graphically slaughters him.

saturnal's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-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

3.25

Chilling. I really appreciated that this focuses more on the vampire aspect than the romance aspect, the latter of which doesn't really feel tacked on or anything. Some of the grizzlier details left me feeling a little nauseated and i don't know how to word that as a positive so you'll have to trust me on that one 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Trafficking, Child abuse, Violence, Sexual assault, Pedophilia, Bullying, and Death

kaiyakaiyo's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

0.5

If you’re into “vampire myth but make it extremely, graphically pedophilic” then this book is for you! I, however, abhorred everything about this. 

Scene after scene of child molestation and frankly unnecessary harm on women and children… the few women characters were there only to be extremely bad mothers or sexual objects… though to be fair, ALL of the characters were extremely unrealistic fucked up caricatures. 

This book was far too long (because of all the pedophilic content shoved in) and had a lot of strange subplots that all came together eventually with no real satisfaction. The only actually interesting thing about this book was how it dealt with Eli’s gender; disgusting castration scene aside, this book was surprisingly faithful to the inherent genderqueer-ness that has existed in vampire myth since the beginning. I’m sure someone could write or has written really interesting papers on gender in this. That’s the only nice thing I can say though, otherwise this was a moderately interesting vampire myth idea squandered on gratuitous trauma porn. What is it with Swedes and pedophilia??? 

Nasty book, the author should be jailed

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Vomit, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual violence, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Animal death, Blood, Rape, Gore, Bullying, Death, Pedophilia, Body horror, and Sexual assault

riley2005's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Bullying

Moderate: Drug use, Pedophilia, and Body horror

astre_errant's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Violence, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Death, Gore, Murder, and Pedophilia

lizardgod's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Torture, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Gore, Homophobia, Murder, Pedophilia, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Bullying, Death, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide attempt, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Trafficking, Drug abuse, and Transphobia

vixenreader's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Despite being overstuffed, it has a lot of bite, and pathos. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Bullying, Classism, Death, Pedophilia, Torture, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Emotional abuse, Gore, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Injury/Injury detail, Child abuse, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, and Outing

Moderate: Animal death, Alcoholism, Cursing, Homophobia, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Drug use, Mental illness, Physical abuse, and Sexual content

Minor: Abandonment, Excrement, Racial slurs, and Vomit

There is a graphic scene of a young boy being castrated, and the pedophilia in the book is quite prevalent. The gender identity in the book will bring up a lot of issues in terms of representation of trans youth. Plus there is some scenes featuring unintentional urination.

meereswogen's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Alcoholism, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Gore, Murder, Violence, Vomit, Bullying, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Pedophilia

noble_reads'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

4.0

Succeeds in being properly scary, especially in the second half when all the action really reaches a crescendo. Creepy and uncomfortable.
The ending left a little to he desired in my opinion, open. I'll definitely pick up the collection of short stories which is supposed to include a sequel.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Sexual violence, Gore, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, Animal death, Bullying, Child abuse, Excrement, Medical trauma, Murder, Medical content, Torture, Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Cannibalism, Fire/Fire injury, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Violence, Vomit, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Rape, and Self harm