Reviews tagging 'Blood'

My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna van Veen

11 reviews

aparker89's review

dark emotional sad tense 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

5.0

Wow! I just could not put this one down! I spent an entire day devouring this book and I imagine many others will too! I liked it so much- I plan on purchasing a hard copy in addition to the ebook! 
Absolutely fantastic writing! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Forced institutionalization, Hate crime, Murder, Abandonment, Bullying, Gaslighting, Outing, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Rape, Sexual violence, Infertility, Infidelity, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexism, Blood, Gore, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Colonisation, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Grief, Misogyny, Stalking, Terminal illness, Violence, Chronic illness, Classism, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Sexual assault, Slavery, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Torture, and Toxic relationship

mccalab's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• 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

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood and Vomit

Minor: Rape

tifftastic87's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

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

3.0

Alone and afraid Roosje has called to a spirit and bound it to her. Ruth will do anything to protect Roos from any perceived harm. When an older woman offers to take Roos away from her abusive Mama, Ruth is wary and protective, but Roos has never felt safer.

Mostly, I was bored after the first 60 pages. Things happened very slowly which doesnt always bother me but I found tedious here. We spent a lot of time with the characters but I never felt attached to them. Roos is immature and hyper reactive to negative emotions, both things that make sense with her character but do not make for fun reading. She's constantly seeking validation and that combined with the age gap, power dynamic, and emotional maturity of the two characters made it very hard for me to find the love in the story that the author wants us to find. It seemed more like Roos went from an abusive mother to an inappropriate relationship and we capped it off with an abusive relationship with the spirit, Ruth. 

The incest was unneeded to make Thomas a bad man, the racism and abuse did that well enough. It started to feel rather gratuitous. 

The tension was very low for a gothic horror and everyone just kind of felt exhausting. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Death, Blood, Child abuse, Racial slurs, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Racism, and Violence

Moderate: Incest, Infertility, Xenophobia, and Homophobia

bookeduntil's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Toxic relationship, Violence, Emotional abuse, Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Mental illness, Terminal illness, Body horror, Sexism, Sexual violence, Racial slurs, Toxic friendship, Blood, Chronic illness, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Sexual assault, Death, and Gore

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Child death, Suicide, Lesbophobia, Abandonment, Incest, Cannibalism, Classism, Infertility, and Infidelity

nostoat's review

5.0

This is an incredible modern example of the Gothic, complete with questions of sanity, obsession, love, and desire. What is love? Is it pain? Must it only be pain? When you've been through what these women have, can it be anything but sharply edged, with bloody teeth?

I was a bit apprehensive to read this book, as I have strong feelings about madness in narrative, as well as triggers around unreality. However van Veen handles it with such a deft hand. While some readers might still find it difficult or triggering to read (there are doctor's notes sprinkled throughout that, while deeply compassionate, might still be difficult), I didn't. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Terminal illness, Self harm, Racism, and Child abuse

Moderate: Incest and Sexual assault

Roos is intentionally starved by her mother throughout the beginning of the book.

adragoninspace's review against another edition

dark mysterious

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Blood, Child abuse, Self harm, Sexual assault, Racism, Death, Death of parent, and Rape

bookedbymadeline's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

4.0

Thank you to Netgalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the eARC!

First off, I loved that the author gives content warnings! It’s something I think every book should have. Now into the review-

The novel is set in The Netherlands during the 1950s. I was so excited to discover this since I haven’t read many books set in The Netherlands!

The story goes back and forth between the main plot and transcripts of Dr/patient interviews at the end of each chapter. It made the plot feel more driven, and was a big reason why I didn’t want to put it down! 

Agnes is part Indo, and we learn a bit about the culture as well as the history of Dutch colonization in Indonesia. I found it very interesting and learned a lot I didn’t know before about that piece of history!

Although the story is eerie and disturbing at times, it also has an undertone of warmth and affection, especially regarding the found family between the characters! The book slowed down a little bit in the middle but overall it was an engaging story. I enjoyed the complex characters and the unique ghost story aspect, with having spirit companion instead of being unwillingly haunted.

I did half guess a couple of the twists but they were still really well written! The novel was a quiet horror book with more disturbing imagery than fast paced action. The imagery of Ruth gave me nightmares and made me scared of the dark for sure 😭

Fantastic gothic story with a haunting, atmospheric setting and sapphic romance subplot! I’ll definitely be keeping my eye out for the author’s next book 🤍 I enjoyed the book and the story but it wasn’t exactly what I hoped for. It was slower paced than what I wanted/hoped for and I kind of expected more action based on the synopsis. It was good just not great, if that makes sense?

I’d recommend for anyone wanting a sapphic love story (that’s not a romance book), unique haunting/ghost story, or a gothic horror set in an eerie estate!  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Racism, Mental illness, Child abuse, Self harm, Vomit, Terminal illness, Death, and Violence

Moderate: Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Child death, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual violence, Incest, Medical trauma, Sexual content, and Homophobia

Minor: Suicide attempt

coobugz's review

dark mysterious sad medium-paced

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

5.0

So at first, my thoughts were ‘wtf am I reading?’ I’m not a big horror and ‘spooky book’ reader, and the first bit made me nervous. But the further I got into it, the harder it was for me to put the book down. In a way, it’s like a dark ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ mixed with a less haunting ‘The Shining.’ 
I appreciated the interspersed different POVs, and looked forward to the doctor’s POV/case notes. I felt defensive and protective of Roos, and have respect for Dr. Montague. Not gonna lie, Ruth weirds me out and pissed me off sometimes, but that’s plot for ya. 
A solid 2 claps for the ending and epilogue. 👏👏
I received the book through Goodreads giveaways as an advanced copy and was super excited to read it before the release date, and to give my first review. 
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Vomit, Blood, and Gore

Moderate: Confinement, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Eating disorder, Homophobia, Emotional abuse, Body shaming, Child abuse, Death of parent, Incest, Murder, Sexual assault, and Rape

Minor: Miscarriage, Racial slurs, Cursing, Cannibalism, and Infertility

emily_journals's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious slow-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? It's complicated

4.0

This book was a really solid read and a strong debut novel and I will definitely have my eye on this author moving forward. 

I really enjoyed the inter-character relationships going on in this book and I really loved the world-building.  You can tell that the author really took time to develop the relationships in this book, especially those between Roos and Ruth and between Roos and Agnes. The ghost/spirit lore established in this book was so intriguing and unique. The level of intricacy in this lore of relating not only how someone dies, but where their body resides to how a spirit comes to be and has to be reawakened was really brilliantly done. 

As typically expected when reading a debut novel, there were some craft issues with this book. While I did really love the inter-character relationships in this book, I did think that the character development of singular characters could have been explored more. I also thought that the pacing of this book was a bit off, this book felt very slow and drawn out for the level of plot and character development that were happening within this book, but I think learning when to draw out or condense parts of a story typically come with practice so I'm usually a little more forgiving of debut authors on pacing. My biggest complaint about this book is that even though it was a horror novel and there was a level of anticipation as certain points, I felt that this book was greatly lacking in suspense. For me, the interview framing device was taking suspense out of this story rather than adding to it and I wish that the framing had been done a little differently so that I still felt suspense going through this story. 

Overall, this was a very strong debut and the character relationships and lore building generally outweighed the craft issues for me. 

ARC provided by NetGalley.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Confinement, Death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Body horror

Moderate: Abandonment, Forced institutionalization, Cursing, Infidelity, Racial slurs, Domestic abuse, Sexual assault, Torture, Self harm, Murder, Rape, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Incest, Medical content, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Cannibalism, Child death, and Racism

Minor: Colonisation, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Eating disorder, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Mental illness, Animal death, Classism, and Drug use

love_and_lilacs's review

challenging dark emotional sad tense 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? Yes

3.5

 3.5 STARS

My Darling Dreadful Thing hooked me almost immediately. I inhaled this book. I simply could not leave it unfinished. I had to know what happened. 

I have mixed feelings on the ending, though, which is often the case for me in this genre of work. I found the premise entirely enthralling, and the author's take on how someone becomes a spirit and lingers in this world was especially intriguing to me. I absolutely love, love, loved that idea. I would love to see it explored further. 

In general I found there were some minor continuity issues here and there, though nothing jumps out at me as totally distracting from the overall story. 

It should be said, this is not an easy book to read if you are sensitive to any number of topics. This is a gothic horror book through and through, dealing with the tough topics of sexual assault, homophobia, child abuse, racism, murder, and more, and probably some stuff I just plain forgot. So be aware of that if you intend to pick it up and give it a go. 

All-in-all, even with the less-than-satisfying ending, I'd still generally give a recommendation to gothic horror fans who can handle some rough subject matter. 

ARC provided by NetGalley 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Incest, Blood, Body horror, Body shaming, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, and Violence

Moderate: Racism, Sexual assault, Racial slurs, Homophobia, Toxic relationship, and Vomit

This is a gothic horror book and it is entirely about horrible and horrific things happening. Your definition of graphic may be different than mine. Please be advised that I may not have remembered every content warning, but I tried to remember the big ones.