Reviews tagging 'Alcoholism'

The Last Final Girl by Stephen Graham Jones

5 reviews

readthesparrow's review

dark mysterious fast-paced

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

2.75

Style is interesting, and on a technical prose level is is excellent. However, the heavy references can make it difficult to follow at times, even for a horror/slasher lover. Style, despite being interesting and being thematically appropriate, was also difficult to follow at times and often exhausting, even for a 200 page novel. Normally I would blaze through a 200 page novel, but this took me five days to read because I could only get through around 20-40 pages at a time before having to take a break.

Liked the story and the characters, but it was just. Too much at times. 

Also,

the final college epilogue was really goofy. Did I like it? Eh. Sure. It's camp.

I think I was mostly just glad it was over.

Interesting to see the bones it shares with MHIACS.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Animal cruelty, Blood, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, and Murder

Moderate: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal death, Sexual content, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Adult/minor relationship, and Animal cruelty

podanotherjessi's review

lighthearted medium-paced

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

3.5

It's abundantly obvious to me that my enjoyment of this book was adversely harmed by having only seen all of about half of a slasher film in my life. This is a referential story to it's core, and if you aren't a fan of slashers, there's half a dozen references per page just about that are going to go right over your head. I literally had know idea what people were talking about half the time. This overall took me out of the story and made it hard, at times, to really get into it at all.
That said, when I was into it, I was really into it. There's some reall cools sequences and the style is very evocative. There are definitely things I didn't like  - the oversexualization of the girls, dropped plot points, confusing action sequences - but I got the feeling those things were intentional nods to the slasher genre. I also felt it was mostly predictable, but I think don't think that's necessarily a negative.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and Death

Moderate: Alcoholism

dragonbloom's review

dark mysterious 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

3.25

Hated the writing style, but found the ending more satisfactory than I was expecting. Enjoyed Izzy’s character development.

The reveal that Izzy is a virgin and Lindsay isn’t was awful, though.

 

The deaths were a little contrived, and the lack of environmental description left me confused during action scenes, but I usually got there in the end. The characters felt 3D. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Child abuse, Alcoholism, Bullying, Gore, Grief, and Sexual content

Minor: Mass/school shootings, Suicide attempt, and Self harm

Murder, violence, injury, gore: The book is quite violent, as it mimics slasher movies. Fire:

A character burns to death. Their wounds are described rather graphically.

A fire breaks out in the climax. Animal death:

A horse is killed in the climax.

Adult/minor relationship: A teenage girl and an adult man flirt. They later go home together. Whilst I do not believe he made sexual advances beyond the flirting seen onscreen, this could still be upsetting. At the beginning of the book, a character implies she slept with a teacher.

This character later turns out to be 19, almost 20, though it is still inappropriate for the teacher to do this.

Child abuse:

A character’s father appears to be verbally abusive.

Alcoholism: A character spends a lot of time drinking. Her father is certainly an alcoholic. Bullying: There is a scene in which a character steals another’s backpack to upset him. Grief: The deaths in this book are not much mourned, due to the fast pace. However, there is discussion of memorials and

one death appears to hit a character quite hard.

Sexual content: A few sex scenes, as well as sexualised nudity. School shootings:

A character has brought a gun to school. He is stopped before he can shoot anyone.

Suicide, self harm: A character is mentioned to have “suicide scars”

henrygravesprince's review against another edition

dark funny tense fast-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Bullying, Death of parent, and Murder

Moderate: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Fire/Fire injury, and Gun violence

Minor: Vomit, Adult/minor relationship, Mass/school shootings, Alcoholism, and Self harm

davidrb's review

dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.0

Had high hopes, unfortunately it's just not that good. It had a lot of potential that it just got lost in. I'll still be checking out his more recent work: I've heard nothing but praise for his last two books!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Addiction, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Mass/school shootings, Murder, and Violence