Reviews tagging 'Stalking'

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

44 reviews

alexisgarcia's review against another edition

dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad 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

this book is like nothing i have ever read before. i went into it blind and would recommend everyone does the same (except for content warnings if you need to) for the best reading experience. a lot of reviews had spoilers in them, even if they did not mean to. this writing was so incredibly immersive, the characters were incredibly well-rounded, and the narration was like nothing i have ever experienced. everyone needs to read this. if you have already read this and are looking for something similar, Ian Reid is the closest comparison i can make. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Confinement, Abandonment, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Alcoholism, Animal death, Death, Death of parent, Body horror, Child death, Drug use, Gaslighting, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Grief, Murder, Physical abuse, Toxic friendship, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Stalking, and Suicide attempt

theimposter's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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: Alcoholism, Animal death, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Mental illness, Medical trauma, Kidnapping, Child death, Child abuse, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Stalking, Self harm, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Toxic relationship, Injury/Injury detail, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Animal cruelty, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Domestic abuse, Dysphoria, and Vomit

jkar7's review against another edition

challenging dark slow-paced

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

2.0

I don't think I've ever frowned so hard reading a thriller novel before. This did not go at all how I expected. I am not sure I enjoyed it... but I didn't dislike it. But I'm also glad I'm done with it. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Alcoholism, Mental illness, Animal cruelty, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Stalking, Suicide attempt, Child abuse, and Child death

uchihas's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Genuinely the first TikTok recommendation I’ve enjoyed. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, Blood, and Mental illness

Moderate: Medical content, Suicidal thoughts, Animal death, Death of parent, Murder, Child death, and Animal cruelty

Minor: Homophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Kidnapping, Stalking, and Suicide

emwgrace's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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

2.5

Trigger/Content Warning for the novel: Extremely Graphic Depictions of Child Abuse

Overhyped and ultimately disappointing. 

I’ve been meaning to read more mystery/thrillers, so I was excited to start this one. At the beginning, I was truly intrigued by both the missing girl case and the main character, Ted, and of course, any book that features a cat will get a special Cat Bonus Star from me. But around the halfway point, something about this made it so slow to get through, and instead of being the page-turner it should have been, I found myself more often just setting it down. This novel also made me uncomfortable (not in a good way) with how it handled certain topics, and because of that, any positive experiences I had while reading have been tainted. 

**Spoilers for the rest of the review**

Nothing ruins a book faster for me than using mental disorders as plot twists. It’s cheap and in almost all cases, poorly done. Yes, I read the author’s Afterword about the research she did and her intentions to destigmatize how DID is treated in media. But after finishing it, I can’t help but feel that the way this condition was handled in this book fed exactly into that stigma. While it was obvious for anyone who’s somewhat familiar with the genre to tell quite early on that Ted was not the culprit—that would have been too easy—the story still points all of its fingers at him from the beginning and spends more than 80% of the narrative treating him like an abusive monster who kidnapped a girl and locks her in a freezer. Revealing at the end of a novel, marketed as horror, that the character who’s been villainized by other characters and treated as an outcast to be feared for nearly the entire book has DID from abuse he experienced as a child, in my opinion, is not revolutionary. You can’t subvert the way mental illness is depicted in fiction if you spend almost 300 pages reproducing the same harmful portrayals you’re trying to subvert.

I know not everyone will agree, but I also know I’m not alone in my views.

In the end, the book wasn't scary, it was just sad and made me feel kinda gross. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, and Child death

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Animal death, Mental illness, Self harm, and Ableism

Minor: Kidnapping, Murder, and Stalking

ahixon1's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Toxic relationship, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Mental illness, Medical trauma, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Suicide, Stalking, and Gore

Minor: Vomit

slpysnek's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Kidnapping, and Mental illness

Moderate: Blood, Child death, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Stalking and Animal death

aardwyrm's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense 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

It's fun to read, and the genre is full of works that are great atmosphere 90% of the way through and then don't stick the landing. If you just want spooky eeriness, it's not a bad choice. It's just ultimately got nothing it's actually about. The setup seems to promise a situation where lots of cliche genre stuff seems to be true, and then the big twist is all the cliche stuff is in fact true, just obfuscated. It's definitely going for twisty and intricate, but a twist and just changing the story partway through aren't really the same thing. Exactly the sort of book I think ought to have a warning sticker you can optionally peek under so you can know before you get invested if the supernatural is just a bad metaphor. When the big reveal is nothing interesting has really happened, then it's hard to care about what comes before. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Physical abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicide, Violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Torture, Classism, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Misogyny, Murder, Self harm, Alcoholism, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Homophobia, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Ableism, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Body shaming, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Abandonment, Animal death, Body horror, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

cinthiaurora's review

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.25

A very weird book. Will add more thoughts to this review later.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Dysphoria, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, and Stalking

Moderate: Death of parent, Murder, Suicide attempt, Body horror, Child death, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Alcohol, Medical content, and Medical trauma

Minor: Blood, Fatphobia, Animal cruelty, and Animal death

amberinbookland's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Stalking, Physical abuse, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Murder, Animal death, Alcoholism, Violence, Torture, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, Homophobia, Gore, Emotional abuse, Death, Confinement, Child abuse, Body horror, Blood, Animal cruelty, and Alcohol