Reviews with content warning for Miscarriage - Der Knochenwald

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Reviews tagging 'Miscarriage'

Der Knochenwald by Christina Henry

110 reviews

e_gracereads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful 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? Yes

4.0

Holy WOW was this book fast paced. It starts off HARD and FAST. It was a very quick read, and steeped with action throughout the entire novel. I really enjoyed the “two villains” aspect of the book; however, I do wish we’d gotten more of the creature in this creature-feature. The horror in this book is really a lot less because of the creature, and a lot more because of the people.

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nickoliver's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional tense 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? No

5.0

t only took me three days to finish this book, which some might not call a quick read, but for a horror novel with a heavy focus on domestic violence, my reluctance to stop was definitely surprising for me, personally. Usually, hard and graphic stories like this need to be digested in intervals and not all at once.

What made it such a page-turner for me was how atmospheric it was. The sheer idea alone of being stuck on a mountain with your very abusive husband was horrifying. Add to that the terror of knowing there was a monster out there that you couldn’t identify - and your husband’s insistence that it was his mission to kill it, therefore deliberately seeking it out and forcing you to do the same -, and you’ve got yourself a nightmare setting and scenario.

What was the bigger threat and monster in Mattie’s life? This big, scary creature out in the woods who kept brutally killing animals? Or the man in her house who beat and raped her daily and kept her chronically malnourished and weak? I loved the way Henry played with that thought, because it made you question who you should fear more. In any other book, the answer would always clearly be the unknown, supernatural creature, but here, that wasn’t really the case. The snowy, cold season exacerbated Mattie's situation even more and turned the atmosphere even more nightmarish.

Admittedly, the domestic violence was a lot. It wasn’t completely graphic, thankfully; especially the rape scenes were off-page, and a lot of the beatings were also only talked about before or afterwards. But William was extremely misogynistic and abusive - a religious nut job who picked and chose what he decided was a sin and what wasn’t.

(Music? A sin. Kidnapping a girl and murdering her mother? Totally okay. Putting a child in a box so that she was so traumatised she’d obey you forever? Definitely what God wanted.)

It was hard to read sometimes, so if that’s triggering for someone, that should be taken into account.

I loved that the story subverted my expectations a little. Once the three strangers appeared, I assumed there would be a tentative step to romance, just based on the way Griffin was talking and Henry wrote about him. So the way the plot progressed instead was brutal and shocking to me, but also kind of a nice surprise? It’s not like a romance would’ve fit well into the book, anyways.

I liked Mattie as a protagonist. Her trauma was portrayed very well and real. While I did think the way her memories came back was a bit too convenient at times, Henry focused a lot on the reasons behind how she managed to forget about things in the first place, and it was just very authentic. I also never got properly angry at the way she acted, because it made sense that she wouldn’t fight back in the way some readers would.

I also liked the three strangers a lot. They were developed quite nicely, and even though C.P. was sometimes thick in the head and dismissed Mattie’s very real and obvious trauma, some of his actions did make sense in retrospect. And he seemed pretty versatile - my feelings about him changed a lot, he was never static or all too predictable, which made sense in the stressful situations they were all in. The only gripe I had was the fact that he reacted to a quite gory scene very nonchalantly afterwards. It was a nightmare in the moment, but he got over it way too quickly. That didn’t feel very realistic.

Like I said, I read this pretty quickly and didn’t want to stop. It was very suspenseful! Especially the unexpected plot points - like

Griffin actually dying

- made it hard for me to put the book down. I just wanted to know how it ended.

Speaking of ending, I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about that. It was a bit too abrupt, and personally, I would’ve liked to see a bit further into Mattie’s future.

I would’ve liked to know if she was going to see her sister again and how the public reacted to her showing up again after eight years missing.

However, I do think it made more sense this way. Going from these 363 pages of nonstop suspense and creepy moments in the wildnerness to suddenly having scenes in the public would’ve been too much of a difference.

Overall, this was an atmospheric, suspenseful horror book that asks the question what’s scarier - monster or man?

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sophiesbookshelf2's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I found this tense, dramatic and thought the characters were very realistic. As much as I wanted Sam to stand up for herself I could easily understand her fear. The pacing was pretty good too. I kind of wish the 'wild monster' got more explanation but still a pretty good survival thriller

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