Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

43 reviews

samtheoboeguy's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-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: Rape, Child death, Murder, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Child abuse, and Blood

elvenpanther's review against another edition

dark mysterious fast-paced

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

4.25

Lindqvist managed to write this in such a way, that despite being uncomfortable at how twisted much of this novel was, I was throughly engrossed and could not put it down. I enjoyed how he wove the story through the view points of several members of the community and how he tied all of those "individual" narratives together.
This novel was dark, and gritty, and explored so much more than "monster" trope. In a way, it focused on how monstrous people could be. How sometimes it's not what goes bump in the night that you need to fear, but instead your neighbor or your classmate. It explored broken people, broken families and broken children and their struggle to navigate the world when they feel alone.
I didn't really know what to expect when starting this, and yes some parts of the novel made me squirm, but overall I enjoyed it. I had watched the Swedish film adaptation after and I will say I appreciate how much more in depth the book went. It made for a much more complex and visceral narrative than the movie.
*As a warning, the book does strongly contain the topic of pedophilia*

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Murder, Bullying, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual assault, Pedophilia, Rape, Toxic relationship, Sexual violence, and Medical trauma

Minor: Animal death

owlribbon's review against another edition

dark sad medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Murder, Pedophilia, Self harm, Sexual assault, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Blood, Suicide, Violence, Animal death, Bullying, Child abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, and Injury/Injury detail

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

johnsaysjulia's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Child abuse, Sexual violence, Alcoholism, Animal death, Blood, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Bullying, and Excrement

ahh_listen's review against another edition

adventurous 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? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Bullying, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Rape, Trafficking, Child abuse, and Pedophilia

Moderate: Drug abuse, Transphobia, and Fatphobia

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

seawarrior's review against another edition

dark emotional

4.0

Let the Right One In is a winding, intricately planned horror story that examines vampire lore in a fresh way. At the heart of the novel is the understanding that life, death, love and everything else in between them feel different when you are young and adulthood still looms far on the horizon. 

While the first half of the book is rather slow-paced, I never felt that it was tedious to read. This pleasantly surprised me since I typically avoid books of this length. As the story progresses, we are introduced to a variety of characters whose lives start to converge due to Eli's innocent yet ruthless will to survive. Lindqvist provides a humanity to each of these characters, even the ones who are most despicable or only show up on a few pages. Any scene from Håkan's perspective was disgusting to read, though he is thankfully tortured throughout the narrative and never given a moment of peace. It was definitely rewarding to envision him growing more and more grotesquely wounded throughout the corse of the book. 

The second half of the novel was paced quicker, and by the last hundred pages I felt it impossible to put the book down as I prepared to go into work. Though horrific and mysteriously worrying, the book is given a satisfying ending in line with the themes of youth providing a film over the reality of violence and toxic romance. This was a unique, memorable horror story that deserves the international interest that has swirled around it since its release.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Pedophilia, Bullying, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, and Sexual assault