Reviews tagging 'Child death'

The Stand by Stephen King

35 reviews

stella323's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Suicide, Sexual violence, Rape, Child death, and Violence

briar_nettleroot's review against another edition

challenging 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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Child death, Murder, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Violence, Racial slurs, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Drug use

brookebatesratesbooks's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Cursing

Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual content, Gun violence, and Rape

Minor: War, Child death, and Terminal illness

ladawson's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense slow-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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Grief, Ableism, Bullying, Chronic illness, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Gun violence, Murder, Pregnancy, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Self harm, Sexism, Sexual harassment, Torture, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Body horror, Child death, Cursing, Racial slurs, Drug abuse, Drug use, Fatphobia, Hate crime, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, War, Body shaming, Mental illness, Violence, Animal death, Blood, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, and Medical content

muzik_izak1's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious 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

4.25

I don't have any words to express how happy I am to finally finish this book. I love King's writing but this was insanity. The sure length of the book was intimidating enough. But the story did not disappoint. From the first second of craziness to the somewhat twist ending, I was enthralled in this story. There were some boring parts, but there always are. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Violence, Suicide, Child death, Death, Murder, Sexual violence, and Gore

Moderate: Sexual content, Rape, and Racial slurs

mxpringle's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring tense 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

5.0

Best Stephen King novel of all time. It was so masterful and complex and I think that I'll be thinking about this book for a long long time. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Blood, Mass/school shootings, Rape, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Violence, Gore, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual content, Death, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Self harm, Racial slurs, Racism, Ableism, Car accident, Pregnancy, Sexual assault, Child death, Body horror, Cursing, Miscarriage, Murder, Vomit, Genocide, Infidelity, Sexism, Cannibalism, Medical content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, War, Confinement, Death of parent, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Misogyny

Moderate: Alcohol, Animal death, and Alcoholism

Minor: Cancer and Drug use

mswarning's review against another edition

dark mysterious

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

3.75

Omg I finished this M-O-O-N, that spells monster, of a book. Jesus. Fucking. Christ. As someone who did not read a book over 500 pages until mid September, I deserve a gold star for reading a book this long. Holy shit.

I know this tells you nothing of what I thought of the book itself. Well, I added a lot of notes while I read this book. Allow me to share:

2%: "The n-word usage is not my fave." - SG
2%: "This one is sooo long. Hoping I can finish in 18 days 😬 " - Instagram
5%: "I'm not super into this narrator." - SG
30%: "I'm getting there, slowly but surely. Waaaaay too many characters and POVs. And I'm so-so on the narrator." - GR
30%: "I'm listening to the extended uncut version, btw. I'm sure the original one is better." - GR. At this point, I was still naïve AF.
30%: "Took awhile to get into it, especially with so many povs. 12 days to finish now.  🤞" - Instagram
43%: "M-O-O-N spells slog." - GR
53%: "The first 40% was way too long. I can't believe I didn't know that this book is over 1100 pages.  😂" - GR
69%: "I have to finish in 5 days, which I think is doable. If I had to do this over again, I would stick to the print." - GR
69%: "Semi-regular 'The Stand' update. Feeling less irritable about the length now. Pretty confident I'll finish in 5 days. I can't say it's been a pleasurable experience racing to the end. I can tell this book sits better on the buildup of anticipation with dread steadily increasing - as all good King books do. Get a copy without a due date and stay away from the audiobook. Or if you do get it, prepare to increase the speed or you'll feel it suck the life out of you. I miss listening to music or letting myself think in silence. I feel guilty when I watch TV, that I should be listening to this book. Ugh." - Instagram
82%: "I might make it? The book is due in 3 days. Less than 9 hours left [in the audiobook]." - GR
95%: "I'm gonna make it after allllll." - GR
100%: "Finished with 5 hours to spare! I feel like all of my complaints were 1) the audiobook narrator and 2) the loan period. So don't make those mistakes, and you'll be fine." - Instagram

Highlights: Walking at the lake this past weekend listening to the book aloud because my bluetooth headphones had no battery left. The, uh, sex scenes and n-word usage while doing so was a bit sketchy. I had to pause the book or turn down the volume as I passed people.

Overall, I still ended up liking this book. You can tell how naïve I was about the length. I mean I knew it was 47 hours long, but I didn't really know ANYTHING about what that meant. I kept thinking I knew where this book was going or how it would end. I think that's the point, you're prepared for certain tropes or plot twists because authors tend to pull the same shenanigans. I was pleasantly surprised. I wouldn't say it's my favorite King book, but I think it's definitely my favorite King reading experience. Because of all my thoughts and feelings and the fact that I documented it all here.. and on GR and Insta.  😂 

I still stand by all the updates/comments I made while I listened to The Stand. It's too long. As time went by and all the characters met up, I kind of forgot about the slog of the beginning. Part of that is recency bias, I think. But I understand why it's so long. I can appreciate it more on this side of it, even if I hated it while it was happening.

And yeah, check out the content warnings. There are a lot.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Murder, Racial slurs, Racism, Death, Grief, Body horror, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, Death of parent, Rape, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Child death, Medical trauma, Sexism, Vomit, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Drug use, Pregnancy, Animal death, Medical content, and Suicide

aparizo704's review against another edition

adventurous dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

I chose an interesting time to read this, considering present society is battling a “super flu” of our own. I couldn’t help likening the first two parts to forebodings of Nostradamus

(Naturally, I don’t believe COVID was manufactured as a weapon of biowarfare and turned loose by the military

). I won’t gloss over King’s use of racial slurs and the novel’s nearly complete sanitization of non-White survivors from the plot (it’s glaringly obvious), but I will acknowledge the zeitgeist of the time the book was published (no surprises - this is our parents’s generation, after all). The character tropes that eventually manifest themselves act as devices to further along the plot - chiefly to serve the main protagonists, with little exploration of the personal development afforded to most of the founding Zone members. The point could be made about any PoC almost exclusively, but the same goes for Tom Cullen and Nick. Their “before” story, would have been as insightful as Frannie, Harold, Stu, and Larry - especially considering how key they were to saving every soul in Boulder. Despite how critical I appear, I appreciated the extended edition and can’t imagine reading this through without the sections cut from King’s original manuscript. It’s a worthy cautionary tale, which suggests the answer to a question about humanity I believe we know the truth of deep in our hearts, but continue to hope for despite our record on Earth. Hoping is as natural as breathing for us.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Terminal illness, Murder, and Death

Moderate: Mental illness, Pregnancy, Physical abuse, Ableism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Cursing, and Alcohol

Minor: Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Racial slurs, Drug use, Racism, Rape, Addiction, Death of parent, Child death, and Drug abuse

jaym's review against another edition

After 25 hours of listening I decided I didn't care to hear more about human suffering.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Rape, Animal cruelty, Racial slurs, Racism, Torture, Sexual violence, Physical abuse, Child death, and Animal death

flamesocks's review against another edition

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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Misogyny, Murder, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Child death, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Alcohol, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Gun violence