Reviews tagging 'Suicide attempt'

No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull

20 reviews

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

ledolehide's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Pretty intense book. There's so many moving pieces I did not understand how they would come together, but for the most part they did. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, and Gun violence

Moderate: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Hate crime, Police brutality, and Suicide attempt

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

bosco29's review against another edition

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.0

Confusing and hard to follow.

Time jumps constantly.  Character points of view jumps constantly.  So many scenes have something going on in the present, past, and future and switched character viewpoints and locations.  It's really hard to figure out what is going on.  

I love that so many characters of LGBTQIA+, it's like every other character, but it was almost overdone and with how terrible it was to follow the story, it's like the author hoped the inclusion factor would carry the story.  

It started out promising and I loved the premise of the secret world of monsters leaking to the public but the book wasn't about that very much. 

I can't decide if this would have been better as several books in a longer series so you can actually invest in a single character at some point.  In this book, it's basically an introduction to a billion characters in a billion different timeframes.  Maybe it'll come together more in a future book?  I don't see how I'll actually start to connect with a character though with how much it jumps around.  

The audiobook had potential but the narrator pauses in weird places and every  ime the narrator breathes in, it's loud and sounds like he's been jump scared, I know that sounds odd but it was incredibly irritating to hear this constant quick, loud intake of breath mid sentence and after every sentence.  I  am wondering if this is a book thats better physically read instead. Maybe it would be easier to follow too.

I was really excited about this book but it was disappointing.  I don't have the Tok but it feels like another book built up by that platform for whatever reason only to be a flop.  I expected more supernatural and was disappointed by how very little this book actually even mentions the "monsters"/supernatural. 

TW:  This book has a heavy focus on Dr*g use/addiction, mental health.    

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction and Murder

Moderate: Death, Drug use, Suicide, and Suicide attempt

caseythereader's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

spootilious's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-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

2.0

 

Read: August 16, 2023
 Title: No Gods, No Monsters 

Series: The Convergence Saga #1
 Author: Cadwell Turnbull
 Genre: Fantasy Horror
 Rating: 2/5
 Review: 

I don’t really have a lot to say about this one. I didn’t… NOT like it, but there isn’t much I specifically liked either. 

What I can say is that the writing style is beautiful. It is obvious that Turnbull is  very talented. However, the storyline and the characters have this sort of vagueness that keeps anything from truly standing out. 

From what I can tell, most people complain at how the story jumps around and the points of view shift so strangely. I can understand their point. I suppose I’ve read enough novels written this way that it wasn’t too bad for me. Though I will say with just a small shuffle of one or two chapters Turnbull could have kept the mystery while still making the shifts less jarring for the reader. In my opinion he didn’t quite manage what he was going for. 

I will also say that physically reading the book makes it more understandable than listening to the audiobook which is what I first attempted. Dion Graham is one of the sexiest narrators I’ve come across but there was nothing he could do with this one to make it easier to understand. 

Overall, not a bad book but not a great one in my opinion. Bit overhyped but love the writing style 😊 

 Quotes: 

N/A 

 

 

TW: Rape, Murder, Gore, Vore, Body Horror, Mass shooting, General Violence 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Cannibalism, and Murder

Moderate: Rape, Suicide, Torture, and Suicide attempt

elle_e_d_light's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

The writing was great, but the book as a whole left me confused. I started confused. I continued to get more confused. I ended confused. So, the 3 stars are mostly for the writing. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Violence, Mass/school shootings, and Murder

Moderate: Alcoholism, Suicide, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Domestic abuse

mandkips's review against another edition

dark 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Addiction, Body horror, and Gore

Minor: Child abuse, Police brutality, and Suicide attempt

gilnean's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Cancer, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Mass/school shootings, Cannibalism, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Body horror, Deadnaming, Eating disorder, Transphobia, Vomit, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

Minor: Pedophilia, Sexual content, and Excrement

vaguely_pink's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Police brutality, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Cannibalism, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Gore, Transphobia, Violence, Death of parent, Murder, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal death, Confinement, Cursing, Deadnaming, Domestic abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Torture, Medical content, Kidnapping, Stalking, Acephobia/Arophobia, and Fire/Fire injury