Reviews tagging 'Kidnapping'

Pine by Francine Toon

16 reviews

emilyvictoria98's review

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.5

I enjoyed this book while reading it and I did find myself itching to turn the page and find out what happens next especially as we get further into the book but the more I thought about it afterwards, the more I discovered some unanswered questions which did diminish my enjoyment of the book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Death of parent, Kidnapping, and Murder

Minor: Alcoholism

booksof_fern's review

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Kidnapping, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Bullying, Death, Grief, and Murder

Minor: Animal death

ellen147's review

dark mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal death, Bullying, Death of parent, Kidnapping, and Murder

Moderate: Animal death, Bullying, and Death of parent

Minor: Animal death and Bullying

carebess's review

dark mysterious 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? It's complicated

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Death, Gore, Kidnapping, Murder, and Suicide

fdallachy's review

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

3.0

Trying to be objective, this is a well-written book. It's atmospheric and it succeeds in building a sense of dread as it goes along. It does trade a little bit in Scottish stereotypes but, depressingly, most of them feel fairly accurate so this isn't exactly a flaw.

More subjectively, I don't like books about neglected or abused children, so this was never going to gel with me. I also have a fairly low tolerance for New Age spiritualism, which means the spooky happenings occasionally felt silly to me rather than suspenseful. When dealing with those drawbacks, what's left isn't original or interesting enough to have kept me engaged.

Overall, then, I think it's a good book that others would enjoy, I just didn't myself.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism and Kidnapping

Minor: Child abuse

nakutski's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

A well spooky story with a tender heart that slowly develops into a thriller. A 4/5 because the start was a bit slow and the story needed some time to get into the swing of things. Excellent audiobook narrator.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Torture, Physical abuse, Murder, Kidnapping, Grief, Gore, Death of parent, Death, Confinement, Bullying, Blood, Animal death, and Alcoholism