Reviews tagging 'Death'

False Witness by Karin Slaughter

89 reviews

lippland's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

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

3.0

This was my first Karin Slaughter novel. It started out a bit meh — felt a bit forced and several of the descriptions and adjectives seemed repetitive. After getting through the first part the plot began to come together and didn’t seem as forced. The timeliness of the book — set during Covid — was also interesting. 

Fast paced, good character and plot development. Challenging themes.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Addiction, Alcoholism, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Sexual violence, and Pedophilia

rwims's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

3.75

Story of 2 sisters that went through a tough childhood and and even tougher teenage years. Life changing events occurred. Their past is now back to haunt them. We see the effects of trauma and how each Sister coped over the years. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Murder, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Torture

kerrygetsliterary's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Grief, Kidnapping, Medical content, Misogyny, Murder, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Vomit

Moderate: Dementia, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, and Panic attacks/disorders

ohhthehorrors's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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, Adult/minor relationship, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Medical content, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, and Suicide

Minor: Alcohol, Blood, and Dementia

nhope's review against another edition

dark tense fast-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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Grief, Pedophilia, Rape, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Addiction

kamin8882's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

Wow!! What a crazy ride this was !! This is my third Karin Slaughter book and it did not disappoint!!! I loved story, the characters, the relationship between Leigh and Callie, I loved the twists and turns and ALL OF IT !! you definitely need to read this !! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Murder, Rape, and Sexual assault

heyitsmichellehamm's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This book gave me so many feelings. It was such a wild ride and even now at the end, I'm not sure how to feel. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Murder, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Stalking, Abandonment, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, and Violence

jayneyh314's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

Despite not having the most conventional upbringing, Leigh and Callie were good people, trying to make changes to their lives for the better until one night, over 20 years ago, they did something terrible and everything changed. 

Now a successful Lawyer trying to get through the pandemic, Leigh has buried what happened deep inside her until she gets a new client pushed on her at short notice and he knows things about that night, all those years ago, that he shouldn’t.  Can Leigh and Callie save themselves from this new threat and what will it cost them this time?

“False Witness” is due to be published on 24 June by Harper Collins and I was given a free e-arc via NetGalley in exchange for this honest review. 

I’m pretty new to the work of Karin Slaughter but the few of her books that I have read, I’ve really enjoyed so I was very excited to be approved for the e-arc of “False Witness” and I wasn’t disappointed. 

Initially, I was surprised by the pandemic setting. It’s not integral to the plot so isn’t mentioned in the official synopsis of the book but I felt like it grounded the plot in current times and I really enjoyed that aspect of it. 

Slaughter’s characterisation is excellent and she deals sensitively but realistically with Callie’s struggles with addiction. I really related to Leigh and the way she portrayed herself as quite tough but deep down had a really sensitive side and would do absolutely anything for her family. 

As you would expect with a book of this genre there were plenty of twists along the way and although I did predict a couple of them there were some absolute jaw dropping moments too. 

I really enjoy Slaughter’s writing style, “False Witness” is fast paced and kept me absolutely gripped from beginning to end. There’s a comment that Callie makes towards the end of the book that reminded me of the timeframe that we had been dealing with and there is definitely a lot of action packed into quite a short space of time. 

Slaughter’s writing always feels very realistic to me. It’s a fictional story but I’m sure there are people who are brought up in exactly the way Leigh and Callie were. Andrew Tennant is also one of the creepiest villains I’ve come across in a while, precisely because he’s so realistic. Give me a clown down a storm drain and I won’t even flinch but violent misogynists are truly terrifying. 

I would say this book should come with trigger warnings for rape, paedophilia, murder, addiction, drug taking, PTSD and violence (mostly against women). Whilst Slaughter doesn’t glorify any of these actions and is no more graphic than she needs to be some passages could be quite triggering for some people and, as I’ve said above, the realism of her writing that is one of the things I love would make these passages especially triggering. 

I honestly couldn’t find a single fault with this book and as long as you take into account the trigger warnings above I would highly recommend to any lovers of the thriller genre. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Rape, Sexual violence, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Misogyny, Drug abuse, Drug use, Death, Child abuse, and Alcoholism

azazellos_fang's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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: Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, and Sexual assault