Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

The Gunslinger by Stephen King

20 reviews

erin_codes's review against another edition

dark sad 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? No

3.5

The book is slow and the writing is indicative of a freshman author, not bad but not good. But it was an easy read. I was able to read it within a week, and I’m a slow reader. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Animal death, Rape, Child death, Fatphobia, Body shaming, and Abandonment

sonia_reading's review against another edition

1.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death

axeltheredpanda's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

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

4.5

Overall a very good book! I found it a little challenging to read (very flowery text) but that’s likely due to me only reading one book in the last ten years and only just coming back to reading.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Car accident, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual violence, Drug use, and Sexual content

Moderate: Gun violence, Addiction, Child death, Child abuse, Abandonment, and Blood

Minor: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , War, and Cursing

prinsessenora4's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

Very interesting and well written. Quite slow paced (in my opinion). I liked the complexity of the characters and setting, and the deterministic feel of the story.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Gun violence, Murder, Animal death, Blood, Child death, Violence, Child abuse, Death, Fire/Fire injury, and Genocide

dovahkiin_freyja's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark 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? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Child death, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Miscarriage

Minor: Animal death

parenthesis_enjoyer's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

I definitely enjoyed this book, but it is also definitely the start of a saga. Throughout the whole novel there's so, so many hints of a larger world, and bursts of rapid-fire world building. The world King is creating is strange and intriguing enough that I want to continue with this series just to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. There are also a fair few Stephen King-isms in here, to be sure, though I'm told not as many as the later entries. Really, it's a matter of how much you can tolerate the particular style. I'm writing this a long time after I read it so I apologize for the vagueness.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, and Child death

Moderate: Misogyny, Sexual content, and Animal death

ekcd_'s review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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: Body horror, Child death, Blood, Car accident, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Abandonment, Death of parent, Stalking, Animal death, Excrement, Gore, Gun violence, and Violence

theverycraftyvegan's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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

My spouse is going to hate when I tell him I didn’t love this book. He thinks The Dark Tower is the greatest series of books ever written, but book one didn’t do anything for me. 

Was it well written? Debatable. Stephen King is a great author and I’ve loved many of his other books, but The Gunslinger isn’t one of them. You jump around a lot between the present and the past, and it was all very confusing for me. It felt like the book had absolutely no flow. Maybe the series gets better as you go but I don’t know if I’m interested enough to read 7 more—and most of them very long—books to find out. 

Dystopian and apocalyptic, everyone and everything is dying. A very hard existence in an unsavoury world filled with violence and death. 

I also didn’t like a single character. 

And literally every character you meet dies, except for Roland, so don’t grow attached to anyone.

Jake, the boy, was a confusing addition. Where did he come from? Our time?  How did he get there? Why is he there?

And Roland’s love for and eventual betrayal of Jake was just the worst. 

Alice was needy and clingy and portrayed to be ugly due to a facial scar and her age. (40s???)

Sylvia was just a horrible excuse of a human. 

The people of Tull all sucked. 

But the battle of Tull was hands down my favourite part to read.

The Man in Black… I don’t even know what my thoughts are on him. He was very cryptic and I felt like because he only starts to speak at the end of the book I didn’t get to know him. 

I’ve read it. I can say I’ve read it. It wasn’t for me. Might be an unpopular opinion, but there it is. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Murder, Violence, Mass/school shootings, Animal death, Body horror, Gore, Blood, Child death, Death, Gun violence, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Animal cruelty

Minor: Miscarriage, Abortion, and Pregnancy

geeters14's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death and Death

Moderate: Animal death, Blood, and Violence

pkc's review against another edition

challenging mysterious tense medium-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? It's complicated

4.5

I think the key to getting the most out of this book is to to pretend like you’re listening to a friend recount the dreams they had the night previous. That’s the level of abstract oddness you can expect, mixed in with a heady dose of action, classic King gore and flawed characters. In short, I LOVED it can’t wait to read the rest of the series. Though, I do hope the rest of the books are a bit less abstract. I’ll take weirdness any day of the week, but fleshed out weirdness please.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Gore, Child death, Gun violence, Medical trauma, Animal death, and Car accident