Reviews tagging 'Death'

Penance by Eliza Clark

92 reviews

ermw0's review

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

The rare book where I am hooked by the premise, and then completely sold after the first page. I didn't want to look away while also feeling revulsion for the characters and their awful awful ways. God, how I do not miss being a teenage girl. I thought this was an effective commentary on the true crime fandom, as well as those Tumblr girlies who obsess over real serial killers. This book is graphic, infuriating, scary, repulsive, and addicting. Both a rebuke of the true crime genre and sort of a perfect example how you can create this type of gripping story without exploiting real people and their tragedies. As someone who fell off of true crime simply because of how slimy it made me feel consuming the grief of real people, this was the book that gave me everything I wanted and spoke to some of my own feelings. 

Eliza Clark is now an author who I will read anything she writes.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Death, Body horror, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, and Child death

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Torture, Addiction, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Sexual assault and Rape

ginagray's review

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Child death, Blood, Homophobia, Gun violence, Grief, Toxic friendship, Self harm, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Racism, Death, Addiction, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Fatphobia, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual violence, Murder, Gore, Torture, Sexual assault, Mass/school shootings, and Bullying

milliebrierley's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Mass/school shootings, Toxic friendship, Violence, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Torture, Death, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, and Murder

mookisbooks's review

dark sad tense 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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Emotional abuse, Torture, Bullying, Child death, Toxic friendship, Drug use, Eating disorder, Gun violence, Homophobia, Death, Child abuse, Death of parent, Sexual assault, Alcohol, Mass/school shootings, Mental illness, Pedophilia, and Suicidal thoughts

opldxblqo's review

dark medium-paced

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

4.0

I am exactly the demographic for this book: late 20s white woman who spent considerable time on Tumblr in the early 2010s; this book would have fallen short if not for lighting up the teenage nostalgia centers of my brain with its references to the edgy internet culture of my morbid youth (No, I wasn't ever in a serial killer fandom, but I ate up true crime and occasionally looked at "pro ana" blogs with a horrified outsider's fascination). Any reader who missed out on the absolute chum bucket that was Tumblr in the early 2010s (lucky you!) will likely be bored by large chunks of this book.
Despite its heavy reliance on niche internet nostalgia, what Clark gets right in Penance is the critical look at the culture of violence entertainment in true crime media. Penance asks readers to look inward at their rubber-necking voyeurism without scolding; asks readers to question the motives of true crime content creators, and understand that this content more often than not retraumatizes victims' families. Though this exact critique has been explored many times through fiction in the last couple of years in novels such as I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai (blah), and Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll (five starts!), Penance does so much more thoroughly through the use of metanarrative. The sections of prose are well written and each character feels fully fleshed and complex; a delightful surprise after Clark's disappointing first novel, Boy Parts.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicide, Sexual violence, Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Mass/school shootings, Incest, Gun violence, Child death, Rape, Fire/Fire injury, Confinement, Murder, Torture, Child abuse, Toxic friendship, and Death

arianaf's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

4.25

This is a fiction book presented as a non-fiction true-crime story, written by this writer/journalist that, at the lowest point of his career, moves to a small sea-side town, to investigate the murder of a teenage girl who was kidnapped, tortured and set on fire by three of her classmates. The plot is interesting and intriguing, and it offers some strong social commentaries, mainly on society's growing obsession with true-crime. Although, I really enjoyed reading this, it has a few minor drawbacks imo. In some occasions, the slang used by certain characters doesn't seem right for the time period the story is set. Additionally, the author explores in great detail a lot of sub-themes that are not that meaningful to the main plot, making it a little longer than necessary, and that can throw some people off (but this didn't bother me, personally, that much tbh).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Death

Moderate: Toxic relationship and Alcohol

katerina_l's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Body horror, Body shaming, Kidnapping, Lesbophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Mass/school shootings, Fire/Fire injury, Alcoholism, Gore, Grief, Bullying, Murder, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Blood, Fatphobia, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Classism, Death, Homophobia, Self harm, and Violence

Moderate: Suicide, Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Death of parent, Adult/minor relationship, Biphobia, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

drrock's review

challenging dark medium-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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Suicide, Torture, Child death, Alcoholism, Deportation, Toxic relationship, Self harm, Physical abuse, Gun violence, Toxic friendship, Rape, Kidnapping, Alcohol, Mass/school shootings, Drug use, and Death

karenleagermain's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-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

5.0

I have a ridiculous confession. I took an ARC of Penance on my summer cruise and I didn't look carefully at the cover, where it clearly stated "a novel." I was convinced that I was reading a true crime book and kept telling everyone about this shocking case in England.  1/2 way through, I realized that it was fiction. It's mortifying to admit this, however, I'm coming clean. I work at a bookstore and I even have this statement on my shelf-talker for Penance.

The book is a fast-paced force. If you do like true crime, this story will test your love of the genre, as it serves as a push back on our culture's obsession with true crime. In Penance, a group of teenagers lock a classmate in a beach shed and set the shed on fire. The girl survives long enough to accuse her attackers. The story is told through the eyes of the juvenile criminals and there is very little that they regret. We also see the story through the eyes of a true crime podcast, which flippantly talks about the case and is not dissimilar to real life popular true crime podcasts.

I was absolutely hooked by Penance and read it within a few days. I was actually quite relieved that it is a work of fiction, because the details are horrific. Eliza Clark is a fabulous writer and I look forward to reading her other books. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Death, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, and Murder

A teenage girl is murdered by her classmates in a very brutal attack where she is burned alive.

sheeprustler's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Torture, Toxic friendship, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Mass/school shootings, Violence, Bullying, Gore, Death, and Gun violence