Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

Das neunte Haus by Leigh Bardugo

284 reviews

lillybrooke22's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Drug use, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Body horror, Drug abuse, Murder, Physical abuse, Addiction, Gore, and Violence

stephliljazz's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious 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

4.75

This is a great book. I feel like the first chapter starts off a little slow but still good and then it just keeps picking up from there. Inside this world of dark magic controlled by students a lot can and will go sideways quick. The characters are built up perfectly and the plot was twisty just how I like it. To wrap up im really glad this is a series. Now on to book two!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, Drug abuse, Violence, Blood, Toxic relationship, and Murder

Moderate: Rape, Panic attacks/disorders, Classism, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual assault, Physical abuse, Vomit, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Death, Gun violence, Self harm, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Alcohol, Blood, Emotional abuse, and Fire/Fire injury

belles9's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-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? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Death, Physical abuse, and Sexual assault

Minor: Vomit and Blood

orlafitz14's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Really enjoyable, dark academia meets ghosts, kind of scary but I loved it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Bullying, Sexual assault, Drug abuse, Grief, Rape, Vomit, Death, Physical abuse, Blood, Kidnapping, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Classism, Gore, Gun violence, Alcoholism, Animal death, Miscarriage, Murder, and Sexual violence

alyxbeau's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

1.5

I am clearly not the target audience for this book, but I stuck through it anyways even though I should have DNFd this one and almost did on multiple occasions. 

I will put the reamainder of my review in spoiler tags to avoid people glancing at trigger warnings, but it will also contain actual spoilers. 

There was an absolutely massive amount of sexual assult covered in this book, and in graphic detail. There is a minor in an abusive and sexual relationship with an adult, rape, and drugging with substances to allow seeming consensual acts recorded on a phone. There is gory and detailed descriptions of pried open bodies as well. Honestly, those first pages after the initial chapter should have been enough for me to quit then and there, but I didn't. I thought it might get better after about 25 percent of the book, but the sexual descriptions of uncomfortable situations just got more frequent from that point on. 

At first I didn't think sny of it was for the shock factor. It seemed like the experiences our main character went through were described to us to explain her total fear at being touched by a ghost again after being raped as a middle schooler by one. But then her reaction to humans doing the same to her or trying to do the same to her, we're not as intense. They should have been. This is why I think it is all there for the shock factor now, and not included to show why her reaction was intense. Her reaction was intense only once. The trauma forgotten after that first incident at Yale.

This book is not for me. I stayed to solve the mystery of Darlington and got no satisfactory answer. I will not be continuing the series except to read a synopses of books 2 and 3, MAYBE.


 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Drug abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Domestic abuse, Sexual assault, Death, Excrement, Addiction, Sexual violence, Emotional abuse, Classism, Drug use, Murder, Blood, Sexual harassment, Rape, Gore, Adult/minor relationship, Gun violence, Body horror, Toxic relationship, Pedophilia, and Medical content

arimcmi's review against another edition

medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, and Drug use

alexijai98's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Heed trigger warnings! 

Bardugo’s venture into adult fantasy was a good read! Weirdly predictable in the end, but still enjoyable. I’ll be reading Hellbent!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Excrement, Rape, Alcohol, Drug abuse, Drug use, Physical abuse, Sexual harassment, Domestic abuse, Sexual violence, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Injury/Injury detail, Addiction, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, and Murder

katmindae's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious 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

Going to sleep on it because I loooved reading this but I have gripes 

- I almost gave up on the intro because I could not get my bearings for maybe 50-100 pages. Seeing that in a lot of reviews now I kind of hate the time jumping but I also kind of love it.. but it was too much at the beginning for a first book in the series. I went back to the first chapter once the timeline caught up and only then did it make sense. Definitely need more time to slowly give introductions when I think a character like Alex (like Harry Potter or a similar “omg what there’s this whole hidden world character) should be such an easy vehicle for excusable exposition - I liked the chapter breaks of the Lethe book but I didn’t even understand what Lethe was until chapter 3. The atmosphere was there but also with the writing style being atmospheric I couldn’t figure out what was real or a metaphor for a long time. I thought the first chapter was an apocalypse situation.

- idk I haven’t seen in other reviews but it felt kind of 2015 feminism to me IDK !!!!!  loved parts of the callouts to frat and rape culture but some of it felt heavy handed and tripe. Last sequence especially had me disappointed

because why have Daisy be the Big Bad when the greedy old white man was right there!!! I get the callout to white feminism but idk felt way more like a book 2 kind of theme.

- last 50? (Ebook so not sure) pages and the final climax left me super disappointed. One too many twists. Wrong Big Bad.

Still can’t wait to get a library card so I can devour hellbent tho

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, Child abuse, Vomit, Sexual assault, Physical abuse, Rape, and Violence

rhimineecat's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Loved the pacing of the book, haven't had a nice pacing like this in quite a while. 
Also the characters were so fucking cool. Alex was so badass and even the side characters were so loveable. Also please read the trigger warnings for this one, this was a heavy book with very serious topics.
The "magic" system was really interesting and it's always telling to see how these kind of powers are used and who uses them.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Drug abuse, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Murder, Addiction, Drug use, Child abuse, Pedophilia, Sexism, and Rape

sofiaaaaa's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

I’m struck by how beautifully written this was!! Super slow to start and a little confusing, about midway through is when I finally got a grasp of the world-building and magical elements with the different houses. After that, I was HOOKED and completely immersed in the secret societies. Galaxy Stern is a force to be reckoned with (literally!!); I was rooting for the main cast of characters the entire time and loved how they played off of each other. The twists at the end and ongoing murder-mystery were a great way to pull this altogether; I’m completely spellbound. Can’t wait for Hell Bent!!

My only critique is the lack of trigger warnings as there’s quite a bit of graphic violence/sexual assault depicted throughout the book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Physical abuse, and Violence