Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

A Dark and Starless Forest by Sarah Hollowell

14 reviews

pixelatedlenses's review

adventurous emotional reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Child abuse, Child death, and Confinement

cvl_1103's review

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Emotional abuse, Gore, and Child abuse

se_wigget's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective 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

5.0

 

TW: child abuse, abandonment, gaslighting, manipulation, Stockholm Syndrome, torture, death, murder, gun violence, self-entitled arrogant white male, power-tripping control freak psychopath who needs to be chopped up into bloody little bits 

I decided to read a lot of queer fiction this year. Goals.

I cannot express enough my appreciation for the queer rep (including ace), fat girl rep, and disability rep in this book. Love it.

SPOILERS:

I figured out early in the book that Fuckface—I mean Frank—is a manipulative control freak. Early in the book, I thought he might be a narcissist with BPD, but eventually he proved to be a psychopath. 

Stockholm Syndrome also comes to mind—each girl has some level of it. Elle is a flying monkey with the greatest level of Stockholm Syndrome.

"Timeout" kept having sinister overtones even before the reader see what it means—I kept suspecting it wasn't just sitting quietly in a corner. Sure enough, it's torture. 

This book evokes the self-entitlement of power-tripping men who use the talents of women and get credit for them... and who abuse the women in their lives. That reminds me of the history books Women of Ideas by Dale Spender and Pre-Raphaelite Girl Gang by Kirsty Stonell Walker. Abusers, predators, who not only oppress and stunt women’s talent but also take credit for it.

So... this is definitely a high stakes kind of dark fantasy novel. Very dark. Starting a bit before page 300, there’s an infuriating and horrifying scene I found difficult to get through. I ended up skimming forward. Might want to read the sequel to the cozy fantasy Legends & Lattes next, because GRRRRR. 

 

Page 7: Flower magic and a tiny poltergeist. 🌺👻 

Page 336: YES, RECLAIM THE WORD “WITCHES”!

Also, my phone is a piece of trash that kept refusing to paste this review into StoryGraphy & Goodreads. Over and over again. I had to turn on my laptop... just to post one book review.

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Blood, Gun violence, Child abuse, Kidnapping, Confinement, Body horror, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Fatphobia, Bullying, Physical abuse, Torture, Grief, Body shaming, and Medical content

rory18'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? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

A lot to like about this book but also a lot to not like, so I'm rating it 3 stars. It's compelling and the relationships between the characters are as well, but the excessive use of Native folklore from an author I can't find anything about being Native is not good. It's also really predictable. I wrote that diversity was complicated because the two trans characters are somewhat stereotypical, with the non-binary one having shapeshifting/glamouring powers and the trans woman having anger that can take up a room, generally being the angriest character, and being the

computer whiz

of the group. She also

leaves them without saying goodbye.

And in the audiobook, the narrator reads her parts with a voice about as deep as the adult men even though she's been on blockers for years. So like, is it really all that diverse if the representation is questionable and there's cultural appropriation? It's also kind of weird how she has so many characters of color with next to no background of their pasts other than "oh, this Mexican-American character knew some Spanish". 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Gun violence, Murder, Gaslighting, Grief, Mental illness, Blood, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Child death, Confinement, Body horror, Child abuse, Cultural appropriation, and Trafficking

Moderate: Medical trauma, Sexism, Stalking, Adult/minor relationship, Misogyny, Medical content, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Fatphobia

Minor: Xenophobia, Vomit, Cursing, Incest, and Pedophilia

The "there's nothing Frank wouldn't do" and fact that there's no video footage of Frank's room with Elle in it and the general non-sexual first stages of grooming is enough to imply an adult/minor relationship with 16 year old Elle being Frank's favorite, so I'm tagging adult-minor relationship. The main character was in a puppy love relationship with one of her sisters before they grew to consider each other sisters and talks about remembering the feel of her mouth which is sort of pseudo-incestuous. Frank doesn't let the girls learn Spanish for some reason. Excessive mentions and usage of w/nd/gos for a non-Native author.

baxstarjonmarie's review

dark emotional mysterious sad 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

5.0

I think this is my new favorite book. It is gloriously fat, absolutely terrifying, wildly enchanting, and viscerally uncomfortable through the main character's first-person experiences of violence, loss, grief, and freedom.

The author does an especially excellent job bringing in new perspectives on body horror and general spookiness intertwined with the main character's fatness that do not denigrate or monsterize her size, but rather see her fully embody herself and her power.

I was riveted by the story, I loved how much Derry (the main) and her siblings love language and play with it. And sometimes it was so scary that I was peeking between my fingers like at the movies. Just a perfect debut novel, I cannot wait to preorder the author's next book!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Child death, Murder, Death of parent, Death, Blood, Violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Confinement, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Gore, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Torture and Car accident

Minor: Cursing

the primary content of this novel takes place within an absuive home where children are tortured through mental, emotional, and arguably physical methods eg. sensory overload.

fictionaladventures's review

slow-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.0

I’m so glad it’s over 😅 It wasn’t HORRIBLE, but it was sooooooo slooooooooow. Even though it was only 360 pages, it probably could have been half that length. There was just so much detail I didn’t care about at all. It was a very unremarkable story for me personally. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Gun violence, Child abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Confinement, and Death

manicfemme's review

dark emotional 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Medical trauma, Gun violence, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, and Murder

thereaderfriend's review

dark 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

3.25

I liked this a lot but felt like it was slow. Not much else was going on besides the main drive of the story. Really great diversity though. Also wanted to note that there was parental physical and emotional abuse.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Car accident, Child abuse, Child death, and Death of parent

Minor: Physical abuse, Vomit, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Abandonment, Confinement, Cursing, Medical content, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, and Violence

evbyrd's review

challenging dark mysterious

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Gaslighting, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Death, Grief, and Violence

Moderate: Blood and Body horror

modernmatilda's review

dark mysterious tense fast-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? No

4.0

 
The Dark and Starless Forest fit perfectly onto my creepy-flower-girl-forest-ya-horror-queer shelf and I enjoyed the SUPER wild ride. I loved Derry as our narrator, I loved the diverse cast of her siblings, and I LOVE LOVE LOVED the forest spookiness going on. It's like a dark dark dark version of House in the Cerulean Sea.


--SPOILERS AHEAD--
 

I wasn't a big fan of the parental abuse plot point in this novel (not that I'm a fan of it in any novel, I just think it was a rough landing here). It rode that fine line of being twisted and being too hard to stomach. I think this could have been remedy's if the father figure was more sinister in a cartoonish or outlandish way, rather than being so realistic. I don't know if that makes sense.

I really enjoyed the ride of reading this book, but I wish things were fleshed out and explored more.

Content warning for parental physical and mental abuse, confinement, child death, car accident 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Physical abuse, Death of parent, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Death, Child death, Car accident, and Kidnapping