Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

Night Film by Marisha Pessl

12 reviews

lady_bountiful's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Terminal illness, Death of parent, Suicide attempt, Fire/Fire injury, and Suicide

phantomgecko's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

4.0

An ending just ambiguous enough to really make the novel great. Are the questions really answered or  ???

idk, this was an interesting read. Long, but it wouldn't have been as satisfying shorter. I saw someone put this on a list of books they weren't smart enough to read, and I kinda get why. There're layers here, but it's enjoyable even at a high level.

Characters annoyed me at first, but they grew on me. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Fire/Fire injury, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, and Terminal illness

kristareads's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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? Yes

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Transphobia, Misogyny, and Racism

Moderate: Child death and Sexual assault

Minor: Forced institutionalization, Cancer, Chronic illness, and Fire/Fire injury

nostoat's review

3.0

Here's the thing. I don't think this book was good but it was extremely compelling, and the elements of mixed media were fun. However. The main character is weirdly misogynistic, considering this book was written by a woman as far as I can tell, and there's also casual racism sprinkled throughout. The narrative voice wasn't off-putting enough that I DNF'd but it did have me constantly looking at the back flap to be SURE it wasn't written by a man because of the constant misogyny. And the way the book flirted with "the inherent madness of genius" and all of that bullshit. It was compelling though....

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Violence, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Terminal illness

judassilver's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Transphobia, Misogyny, Death, Alcohol, and Sexism

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, Religious bigotry, Cultural appropriation, Ableism, Suicide, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual assault, Racism, Addiction, and Stalking

Minor: Car accident, Forced institutionalization, Cancer, Fire/Fire injury, and Trafficking

philomathean's review against another edition

challenging mysterious slow-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Terminal illness, Transphobia, and Cancer

ro_lux's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Body horror, Gore, Suicide, and Transphobia

Moderate: Cancer, Fatphobia, Drug use, Drug abuse, Gaslighting, Medical content, Alcohol, Car accident, Grief, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Homophobia, Terminal illness, Confinement, Violence, and Animal cruelty

Minor: Racism

limina's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

I LOVED this book. It reminded me of many others, but especially Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis. I was totally engrossed. Fun Fact- there's bonus material on the author's website. At the end of the book it mentions an app but it appears to be defunct. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Suicide

Moderate: Death, Forced institutionalization, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Cancer, Car accident, Fire/Fire injury, Terminal illness, Transphobia, and Sexual assault

treereads's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore and Suicide

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Cancer

nicolinebl's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

This was a confusing but intriguing read. Honestly, just calling it that is underselling it; it was definitely an experience. 

I started reading this book two days ago and barely did anything else besides that because I just needed to know how it ended. 

It starts of slow, then it gets really intense for a while but then it takes a turn that I honestly didn't appreciate nor understand and then it changes directions near the end again, leaving me quite puzzled. 

None of the characters in this book seem like nice people, Nora probably being the nicest one and the main character Scott honestly being one of the most annoying characters. There are a lot of characters to keep track of by the way, I started writing them down lol!

There are also a lot of trigger warnings for this book, the one that made me the most upset being transphobic undertones. Not sure if that's the writers prejudice coming through or her showing that her character is transphobic, but I got really pissed at that part.

There were some parts where the writer tried to make things lighter by jokes or "funny" thoughts but in my opinion, they didn't really work. Also some parts - besides supernatural plotlines or course - were a bit unbelievable. Like how Scott was apparently so rich even though he'd been fired from his job and didn't seem to have a great job at the moment. And since he's investigating for like +-7 months and not actually working or something he's only spending money (and spending it like crazy). Nobody has that many spare change right?

Also, an in my opinion unnecessary loveplot near the ending - if you've read the book you know the part. 

Besides that I am still fascinated by this book. I love the mix of mediums: articles, websitepages, documents, photo's etc. and even bonus content on the writers website (definitely check it out, especially the last one!) 

I chose to read this book in October because of Halloween and must admit I was kind of let down, it wasn't that scary and

I hated that they had a whole supernatural plot, then decided to explain it all away and then afterwards sort of went back to the supernatural route.

I will end my review by saying that I do think this story could have been told in less than 600 pages and dragged a little at some parts but I most certainly do no regret reading this story; because at its main core, it did have some intriguing themes and phenomenal aesthetics. And gosh darn, I'm kind of sad that I'm not able to see the movies Cordova has made, him being fictional and all. 

PS: Think this would be awesome in film format so that I could show my brother and friend who will never read a 600-pages book!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Blood, Bullying, Cancer, Car accident, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Grief, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicide, and Torture

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Fatphobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racism, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Stalking, Trafficking, and Transphobia

Minor: Alcohol, Drug use, Slavery, and Vomit