Reviews tagging 'Domestic abuse'

Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

5 reviews

amoremeg's review against another edition

challenging dark sad slow-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? Yes

2.75

This book was hard to get through. The dialogue was difficult to follow and often felt jumpy or truncated or stilted. I believe (I hope) there was some elegance lost in the translation. There are no winners. I don't know if any of the characters are actually good people. Maybe some are trying but it feels like the impulse to act out always wins, the impulse to not communicate always wins. There are so many irrelevant characters who did not need names and backstories- they were only introduced at all to bear witness to some moment, to be a third person perspective. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Gore, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Alcoholism, Death, Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Drug use, Violence, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, Suicide, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Domestic abuse

Minor: Homophobia, Vomit, and Excrement

thefigtree's review

dark 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

4.5

vampire horror but in a real-world way; it is

pedophilia and genital mutilation and bullying and abuse rather than angsty teenagers or adventure or itwv-silly-fun.

it's very dark and i think you have to aware of that going in to enjoy it at all. but it's so well written, it's atmospheric and sensory and the constant switches in pov work so well with the pacing.

the novel is uncomfortable to read and at many parts made me physically curl up and cringe but it's good and it's clever and i liked it. it definitely could have gone on for another 100/150 pages and been an appropriate length too (with a more fleshed out ending!!!!). 

it's definitely going to throw you off if you go in for the vampires (or because it often gets advertised just as a 'lgbtq vampire book'), you have to be prepared for the content and how it's handled, but if you are it goes to show that when vampires are done well it really does work.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Pedophilia, Adult/minor relationship, and Rape

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Self harm, and Suicide

Minor: Vomit, Domestic abuse, and Homophobia

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

bodiesinbooks's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Cannibalism, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Murder, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Vomit

Minor: Car accident, Domestic abuse, and Drug use

sofipitch's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

5.0

Many books with sympathetic vampire characters leave you desensitized to the horror of either being killed by a vampire or being a vampire. This book does neither. Absolutely amazing. This book has lots of little plot points that come together in a kind of intricate web by the end, it's really impressive. For as many events that happen, I really like that not one character probably understand how this web connects, the only person who understands everything that happened and why, is you the reader.


For diversity I put it's complicated bc a character can be read has being nonbinary or gender fluid but it's not concretely addressed in the book (this is my understanding of the character). It also makes the romantic relationship in the book gay. But the book is a little vague on this

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Blood, Body horror, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Murder, Pedophilia, Self harm, Rape, and Violence

Moderate: Animal death, Drug use, and Excrement

Minor: Domestic abuse