Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Der Geisterbaum by Christina Henry, Sigrun Zühlke

3 reviews

nrogers_1030's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Blood, Murder, Xenophobia, Racial slurs, Racism, Grief, Gore, and Death

Moderate: Alcoholism

sonygaystation's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Cool concept but muddy execution. Especially towards the end. Plus i felt the slurs and vitriol to express racism was so unnecessarily too much

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Death, Child death, Racial slurs, Violence, Blood, Body horror, Racism, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, and Grief

Moderate: Death of parent, Sexual content, Murder, Gun violence, Hate crime, Adult/minor relationship, and Vomit

Minor: Body shaming, Medical content, Emotional abuse, Deportation, Pregnancy, and Infidelity

thekissballad's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Loveable characters? No

2.5

The idea was good, but poorly executed, in my opinion. As much as it pains me, 2.5, and that .5 is a gift because of the potential. The rest of my review may contain spoilers so it's hidden just in case.

First and foremost, Mrs. Schneider deserved a lot worse than a shot in the foot and being slapped / punched. Her POV also felt pointless. The only time her BS mattered was right at the end, and that scene could have easily been rewritten or removed all together.

Second, Miranda's POV was completely unnecessary. Her "slutty" thoughts and behaviors had no real purpose. She was so vapid and shallow that when she died, I wasn't moved. I was actually kind of glad. Sorry, not sorry.

Third, the witchy aspects were completely wasted and not thought out very well. Hell, Lauren ignored it and refused to believe it until the very end. Then David, the one character who even did anything truly witchy, was a side character.

Not to mention the "end the curse" moment was so anti-climactic, and the ending itself left much to be desired.

Fourth, the whole dynamic between Lauren and her mom, Karen, is ridiculous. There's so much hate between them over the most pointless of shit, and then Lauren finally gets her first period and suddenly things are better? How tf does that make any sense? If this were a day or two thing, sure, I could see it, but the fact that Lauren alludes to their discourse having started shortly after (if not before) her father died, makes it such a cop out.

Additionally, Lauren suddenly switching personalities all because Jake expressed his feelings? Ugh.

Fifth, the repetition and abundance of minute details was the real killer of this book. I feel like you could have cut out all of this, plus Miranda's POV and a few others, and reworked Mrs. Schneider's existance, and you'd have a much better story. Possibly novella. And I'd probably have enjoyed it then. This just felt like an attempt to write a full novel, without having enough content to actually write the length needed.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Toxic friendship, Violence, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Murder, Racism, Vomit, Child death, Death of parent, Death, and Racial slurs