Reviews with content warning for Gore - Daphne

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Reviews tagging 'Gore'

Daphne by Josh Malerman

18 reviews

babyfacedoldsoul's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

Unfortunately this was another example of a Malerman book where I was disappointed with the ending. I found the pacing very slow and the book a bit too cerebral for me. It is a good portrait of anxiety however and while I didn't find the characters to be fleshed out very well I did enjoy the interactions especially between the teenagers and their parents.

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shedevls's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

i'm not entirely sure how i feel about the way it ended (hence the rating), but the overall experience was a fun one that kept me wanting to turn the page.

also, as someone who has dealt with crippling anxiety nearly her whole life, i don't think i've ever read something that made me feel so seen... to the point to where it was somehow comforting and uncomfortable all at the same time.

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cwgonzales's review

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.0

A supernatural murder mystery of sorts playing out around a high school girls basketball team.
The monster murderer side of things is fun, chilling and gruesome, but I’m pretty tired of characters needing to overcome trauma as a key point of a story.
You can do anything with your BARE HANDS, got it?

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baby_yaga's review

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dark tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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snappcastermage's review

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dark sad tense medium-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

I wanted so so badly to like this book. The concept is excellent. How could I not be totally into a hair metal listening towering lady monster who feeds off your fear for her existence. But the concept only takes you so far and it’s clear that Malerman had a few concrete ideas and the rest is just padding. The same facts of the situation and story are repeated by the characters over and over again while occasionally dropping in a fresh piece of info you didn’t have before. These pieces can be interesting and there’s ideas in this book I found compelling but when you beat those ideas into the ground it just becomes exhausting. Then there’s the other two huge flaws with this story. The first being this man has clearly NEVER spoken to a contemporary high school senior girl because they absolutely would not talk like these characters nor would they be waxing poetic about the sounds of a typewriter reminding you of a writer hard at work. Maybe a bookish band geek girl would make that association but certainly not a star athlete on the basketball team. But whatever that can be forgiven. But there’s many instances like this which left me going “do you not have a niece or a friends daughter you could have asked for some help with this dialogue?”. The other thing that drove me absolutely insane is the term “baller”. The girls on the team all refer to themselves this way. Fine. But why can’t there be a couple “my teammates” or “players” or literally any other word/phrase choice to refer to a basketball player as? Everyone in this town young and old all refer to basketball players as “ballers”. The term “Baller(s)” had the effect on me that Daphne had on the characters in this book. The more I read the more I felt my head cave in from each repeated use of the term “baller”. All of this is to say this should have been at MOST a novella or it should have figured out something more to do or say than repeat the exact same scenarios over and over. It should have been read by at least one actual teen to punch up this dreadful dialogue. And finally Josh Malerman should open up his novel, hit ctrl + f on this book and put in “baller”, look at home many times it’s used, and then reflect on what he’s done.

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veronica214's review

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mysterious tense medium-paced

5.0

Don't think about it. Don't talk about it. Forget it happened.

"Daphne" will creep up on you. Haunt you. Terrorize you. Replay over and over and over in your head and you WILL NOT get her out.

All I can say is, this book won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I related to it. I appreciate that Josh Malerman expresses the nuances of anxiety disorders through a medium he certainly understands: horror writing.

This novel has no chapters and is one long rambling narrative told though multiple perspectives. It's chaotic. It's what anxiety is. And I honestly couldn't put this book down. Well done!

**contains graphic, violent scenes; child kidnapping

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jocythereader's review

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.75

Daphne is the type of book that keeps you at the edge of your seat the whole way... when you think you have it all figured out, things are not what they seem. There were times where I had to go back and read what just happened slowly because I couldn't believe it. This is a book for fans of a chilling story.

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