Reviews tagging 'Death'

No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull

43 reviews

eloquentlee's review against another edition

I didn’t realize it would contain elements that are personally upsetting

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, and Police brutality

Minor: Child abuse and Sexual violence

dancers_and_dragons's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense slow-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? No

3.75

Turnbull does an excellent job of handling multiple points of view, but be warned that if you do not like books where points of view are thrown around a lot, you are not going to enjoy this book. The twists of third person to first person was well-layered, and finding out

who Calvin (the narrator) was definitely kept me curious, though I wish we had learned his name before, as it felt a bit like a self-insert framing of the book and I was quite confused for a while.

The book made me a bit rabid in my curiosity to find out what was going on, and still dragged a little with certain points of view. I did feel, as the book went on, that they made more and more sense (especially when people started getting connected to each other and I wasn't just listening to one person over here and another person over there, but actually had stories coming together). I enjoyed most of the characters, too, and found their stories and motives compelling. Still, though we see many sides and many stories around the same theme, we're kept in the dark about a lot of things as the reader. It made sense from a narrative perspective, but for me this is why I ranked it lower than 4 stars. I wanted to know why things were happening, and wish we'd gotten a better picture of the grand scheme of things a little earlier in the book, so I could put things in perspective.

Ultimately, I'm definitely looking forward to reading the rest of the books in this series, but it was a challenging read in a way I wasn't expecting. I definitely need a little mental break from confusing books for a while, though! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Animal death, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Blood, Cannibalism, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Classism

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Misogyny, and Dementia

Minor: Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Pregnancy, and War

clown_the_basking_shark's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

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

5.0

Wow, this was not what I was expecting

Regular Review Style:

1. I love Dragon

2. I HATE HARRY! HE PISSED ME OFF!

Here's the real point: Paranoia has a physics to it, and even with something as insubstantial as paranoia, over time it gains substance, has weight. Secret societies are a result of paranoia, not the cause.

3. See above quote. This was the only thing I liked from Harry's perspective (And Dragon). Mostly because, this is the same type of logic that forms cults. Make a group of people paranoid and you can manipulate them. It's also the reason an uneducated society is easier to control. If people are uneducated, they're less likely to do their own research or be able to tell credible sources from not credible sources, therefore they listen to those in power, those who *say* they have the knowledge (heavy on the say). They won't question those in power. Societies that are uneducated cause little change in systems even when they are bad (for a real world example, take the dark ages in Europe).

4. No Gods, No Monsters is a genius title

5. I know Ripley had his problems but I did enjoy his perspective, I also really liked Laina's perspective.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Hate crime, Racism, Mass/school shootings, Cannibalism, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

samchase112'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
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Is it possible to rate a book like this?

Man, am I grateful the second book is already out and available for me to just jump straight into.

Read for a BookBub book club.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Violence, and Grief

psychnp's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense 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? It's complicated

2.0

Heavy and feels incomplete 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism

Moderate: Animal death, Bullying, Death, Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Violence, Police brutality, Grief, Death of parent, Gaslighting, and Dysphoria

swcatlover's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

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

1.0

This book is well written. I listened to the audiobook and couldn’t care less about any of the characters. Also *spoilers* had I know it was werewolves I would have never picked it. Same for the mass shooting. Talk about traumatic. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, Drug use, Gun violence, Hate crime, Suicide, Violence, and Mass/school shootings

jb4nay's review against another edition

challenging mysterious medium-paced

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

3.75

I enjoyed how much the plot tried to do. I had some trouble remembering who was whom with just how many characters there were and the structure of the book. I did appreciate that Turnbull made a joke about all the characters in the acknowledgements.

I feel like this sets up for promising sequel once you have an idea of who everyone is and why you should care about them. It just took a while for things to click.

Like the

alternate reality jumping character, Calvin

had me second guessing if I missed a name somewhere 100 pages earlier because of how his scenes are written. 

But overall, I enjoyed the world, the references to Caribbean folklore especially, and the diversity of characters. I’m curious about the sequel and how things progress. A fun read, but I’d suggest taking notes.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cannibalism and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Death and Gun violence

Minor: Child abuse

aformeracceleratedreader's review against another edition

medium-paced

3.25

Parts of this was really intriguing other parts not so much. Didn't know this was a series but it is interesting enough that I would be down to read the next one if I can get the audio from my library. 
There are A LOT of characters and their own back stories along with the current roles in the main plot. It can get kind of confusing trying to remember who is who /what their life has been so far. 
There are some content/trigger warnings so make sure to check them all if you are sensitive to a variety of topics.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Violence, Xenophobia, Medical content, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Body horror, Child abuse, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Blood, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Infidelity

bessadams's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, and Mass/school shootings

Moderate: Body horror, Drug use, Gore, and Police brutality

Minor: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, and Suicide attempt

megnut's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious slow-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? No

3.5

Each thread of the story is interesting... but it's hard to follow and keep everything straight because there's so many. And that means the plot doesn't really seem like it can move forward much. 

It's a fascinating world, but I don't really feel like I got to see or experience it much. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Violence, and Mass/school shootings

Moderate: Drug abuse and Police brutality

Minor: Domestic abuse