Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

86 reviews

ggcd1981's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

As sete mortes de Evelyn Hardcastle foi um livro que recebi boas referências no booktube e, no geral, não decepcionou. Foi um bom mistério com uma dimensão especulativa

que, apesar de eu ter previsto uma das revelações, especificamente que Michael, irmão mais novo de Evelyn, estava por trás da morte da suposta irmã, me surpreendeu com os principais plot twist. Não previ que a verdadeira Evelyn estava viva e se passando como a camareira Madeline e na verdade ela havia arquitetado todo o plano em conluio com Michael para que a falsa Evelyn morresse a deixando livre para começar outra vida. Também não previ que o protagonista, Aiden, estava numa prisão em que a sentença dos condenados era desvendar o crime para conseguir o perdão. É claro que se for olhar muito de perto é possível achar alguns buracos no enredo, mas a história foi tão intrigante que não me importo. O livro ainda colocou alguns questionamentos importantes, por exemplo, quando um criminoso é digno e pode receber o perdão? No caso de Anna, uma assassina condenada que cometeu vários crimes horríveis, mas mudou com o tempo que passou presa no time loop. O protagonista tinha razão em perdoar os crimes que Anna cometeu até contra ele mesmo e lutar para que ela obtivesse a liberdade? É uma boa reflexão.

O principal ponto negativo do livro para mim foi a fatphobia do autor que ficou clara e evidente sempre que ele se referia ao noivo de Evelyn, Lord Ravencourt. As descrições dadas do personagem me deixaram desconfortáveis como leitora. O livro é atmosférico, repleto de personagens desagradáveis e intrigas entre eles (apesar de haver alguns personagens “agradáveis”), com mais de um mistério no centro. Houve o mistério da morte de Evelyn, mas também como isso estava relacionado a acontecimentos do passado como a morte de Thomas, irmão de Evelyn e Michael que foi assassinado quando criança, e o desaparecimento de um garoto do estabulo na época da morte de Thomas. Amei o clima e cenário montado, a trama me entreteve e até surpreendeu até o fim. Contudo preciso descontar alguns pontos pela evidente fatphobia. Dou 4.75 estrelas.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body shaming, Bullying, Death, Drug use, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Infidelity, Misogyny, Sexism, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child death, Sexual assault, Suicide, and Sexual harassment

jadeyfish's review against another edition

adventurous challenging 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? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Murder

Moderate: Child death, Suicide, and Death of parent

Minor: Animal death

philosopher_kj's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Violence, Death of parent, and Murder

Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, and Alcohol

Minor: Torture

iamaprettyflower's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Child death, Death, Drug use, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

wickedgrumpy's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.5

To relate it to a movie mash up, take Being John Malkovich and pair it with Knives Out with a dash of unexplained world building sci-fi time loop situation. 

Premise was quite good, but the execution suffered.  It dragged in the middle and the wrap up at the end wasn’t very satisfying because it left so many questions unanswered.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Dysphoria, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

heini's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Fatphobia, Death of parent, and Alcohol

Moderate: Infidelity, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Blood

Minor: Animal death, Drug use, Torture, Stalking, and Fire/Fire injury

barrh's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious 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? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Murder

Minor: Suicide and Death of parent

mpbookreviews's review against another edition

challenging mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Despite there being a detailed map at the start of the book and multiple descriptions of the surrounding area I still can’t picture what Blackheath looks like in my head because it was confusing 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Grief, and Death of parent

annareads97's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense 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

5.0

Honestly mind blowing. A book that I already can’t wait to read again just to see what I pick up on, now that I know how it ends. At no point did it go where I was convinced it was going. This is one I would pay a good amount of money to be able to read again for the first time. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Drug use, Violence, Blood, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, and Classism

emory's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

Amazingly detailed and fleshed out mystery and setting, but the 4th dimension chess about Aiden interacting with himself in other bodies throughout the day kind of ruined it for me. I was expecting the day to reset and his other bodies to return to their natural course of action on the day each time he failed to solve the murder; while I don't want to fault a novel for not living up to what I expected, the mystery itself seemed to take a backseat to our narrator trying to puzzle out where to be and what information he already knows in other hosts' brains. Not to mention how many paradoxes he creates by changing the way he interacts with old hosts (and the amount of time he spends trying to do this and his nonsensical failures at it). We're withheld important clues more than once to make the reveal more dramatic, and we're meant to remember details mentioned once, but reminded over and over again of obvious information--such as why our narrator is scared of someone literally hunting him down--as if we'd have no idea. 

The appearance of a masked mystery character who showed up just to tell our narrator exactly what was going on got on my nerves as well. I wasn't particularly sold on the reason Aiden was at Blackheath anyway, but surely there was some better way to insert that idea and others into the plot besides having a character who constantly shows up to dump information at us?

Laundry list of annoyances aside, it's a great version of those classic sorts of "big house, high society, dirty secrets" mysteries. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Fatphobia, Suicide, Death of parent, and Murder

Moderate: Rape

Minor: Animal death

One character our narrator inhabits is described as very fat, and while in this body the narrator never stops talking about how disgusting and shameful it is and how he can barely move. It is very oversold and strongly implied that

this character forcing a woman under half his age to marry him by bribing her family

is made more horrifying because he is fat. The narrator inhabits the body of a man who is a serial rapist (not spoiler tagging bc it is one of the first things he learns about the man). No attacks are shown or described graphically but other characters speak flippantly of the crimes.