Reviews tagging 'Child death'

NOS4A2: Nosferatu by Joe Hill

50 reviews

maddie306's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense medium-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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Drug abuse, Gore, Death of parent, and Murder

nicoletiff's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-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? No

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

jeralisa's review against another edition

dark emotional funny tense medium-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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Self harm, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Blood, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, and Abandonment

josh2183's review against another edition

dark 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? It's complicated

4.75

What a book! Devoured it back when it was first published. 

The Sandman was disturbing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death and Violence

Moderate: Sexual assault

jessicalarson125'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? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

This book was long. Honestly… I was bored a lot of the time. It felt extremely wordy and not in a good way, like I feel like half of the novel could have been cut out and it would have still had the same story and achieved the same effect, just more concisely.

The first 1/4 ish was interesting, and I was intrigued about where the story would go. The middle 1/2 seemed to drag on and on and on and I wasn’t enjoying any of the characters or their decisions or motivations. The last 1/4 got my attention again. But when we’re talking about a nearly 1000 page book (~20 hour audiobook), for around half of it to be laggy, that’s a lot of time and energy that I felt was wasting my time. 

BUT HONESTLY — the worst part for me was the fact that this novel was an obvious and glaring example of men writing female characters. This is a literal quote from the book in the perspective of one of the main characters, a woman: 

Men, she thought, were one of the world's few sure comforts, like a fire on a cold October night, like cocoa, like broken-in-slippers. Their clumsy affections, their bristly faces, and their willingness to do what needed to be done - cook an omelette, change lightbulbs, make with hugging - sometimes almost made being a woman fun. 

It’s so completely tone deaf to the actual overall experience of being a woman that it took me right out of the story, I actually let out a startled laugh and rewound the audio to make sure I heard correctly. I probably should’ve taken it as a sign when the same female main character, as a teenage virgin, wanted to get a tattoo of a motorcycle engine on her chest to “let the boys know what a good ride she was.”  

Overall:
Audio: 5/5, the narrator was incredible, she was literally the only thing that made this book not feel like a waste of my time 
Characters: 2.5/5, I didn’t really like any of them tbh and I’ve already discussed my issues with the women 
Plot: 2.5/5, I actually had more issues with the plot besides that it felt way too drawn out (in my opinion). The concept of the “real” world versus the imaginary (“inscape”) world was fascinating. It was also an interesting take on vampires and I thought that was really clever. It just kind of felt like there were a lot of revolving parts that made the story overly convoluted. 

Also, I’m a medical professional and some of the medical/injury/surgical (especially) aspects of this book lowkey pissed me off haha 

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halfway update: I’m bored. Idk I just don’t really care about any of the characters and this book is SO long. I for sure would have given up a long time ago except that the audiobook narrator is FANTASTIC. 

And like, by no means would I consider myself a prude but there are just so many gratuitous and crude mentions of genitalia (the same issue I have with King’s work) and like oh my god, we get it, you’re obsessed with “mommy tits” but we don’t need to hear it again!!! And again!!! And again!!! 

Also I feel like at this point if I’m reading a horror novel and there’s a dog in it, I should just dnf. I’m sick of the dog dying in overly graphic and disgusting ways. Especially when half the time it doesn’t even do anything for the plot. But as soon as that dog dies the book is like immediately a 3 star (or less) read for me lol.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Gore, Rape, Violence, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Chronic illness and Self harm

Minor: Drug use

matthewosborne's review against another edition

dark funny tense medium-paced

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

4.0

A solid read. Well written action scenes and main characters. I do think the secondary characters were not as well drawn.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Child death, and Death

aiden_mr2's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful medium-paced

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

3.75

A solid book utilized Christmas really well

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Pedophilia and Rape

iamastraythought's review against another edition

challenging dark hopeful sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

God this book took me forever to read but I have to say it was a joy.
If Lou hadn't made it I would have been pissed. I think the end honestly saved the entire book for me, watching it all come together was delightful. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Child abuse, Violence, and Forced institutionalization

Moderate: Child death, Sexual assault, Murder, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

jaedia's review against another edition

Just taking too long to really get started, the characters are not doing it for me, they're too real in a very "grimy" kinda way... Only characters I liked were Maggie and Lou, and poor Lou is fat, and we are told just how fat he is every damn time he's mentioned. To the point where the way he's described at times feels fatphobic, you know? And it's SO much. Jesus. Charlie Manx, also, very interesting villain. But again, it took way too long to get to the point. We get dribs and drabs here and there (I stopped at 43%, it may have picked up after this point but I'm so mentally checked out) and the narrative is so ... jagged. Lots of POV hopping, and changes in time period and such. It's messy. I just don't think this one is for me. Sadly. I was so excited, too.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexism, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Drug use, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, Forced institutionalization, and Murder

hkveit's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Cursing, Drug abuse, Mental illness, Rape, Self harm, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Kidnapping, and Death of parent

Moderate: Misogyny