Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

Lakesedge by Lyndall Clipstone

28 reviews

elwan_enchanted's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense 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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Blood, Child abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, Death of parent, Gore, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Death of parent, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Violence, Vomit, and Suicide

kdez's review

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Injury/Injury detail, and Body horror

Moderate: Sexual content, Child death, Death of parent, Death, and Gore

r_a_bell's review

dark mysterious sad tense medium-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

2.0

This book read like a 2012 self-insert watt pad fanfic, especially in the beginning. There’s a lot of build-up with no delivery and it seems like instead of letting the story speak for itself, the author instead just tells you how you should feel about the story. 

At the beginning, the main character refer to the (initial) antagonist as “the monster” constantly. After hearing a single rumor about him, being told that he’s called a monster and having like 2 interactions with him. It’s like it was just easier to have the main character keep calling him a monster instead of actually illustrating it and leading you to that conclusion yourself. The entire book just felt like it was trying to hard to be dark and scary, without actually delivering. 

My biggest complaint, though, is the descriptions throughout do not line up. When I read, I have a movie that plays in my head of what’s going on in the book. And the way actions were described, it completely took me out of the story almost constantly! For example, if it describes two characters in the same room, at first it will describe them as being on opposite side of the room, and then 2 seconds later it’ll be saying that character A grabbed Character B’s hand. When did they cross the room?? Did I miss something or do they just have super long arms?? 

My final note:

there’s supposed to be  a love triangle in this?? The third person in the supposed love triangle is only actually in a scene maybe 3 times. And the way it’s described it felt my creepy and weird than anything. Reading it, I kept thinking to myself “does the author mean for it to sound like the main character is kind of into him??”

Nothing about it seemed intentional.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Vomit, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, Suicide attempt, Blood, Death, Gore, and Suicide

Moderate: Child death, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Physical abuse, Sexual content, and Abandonment

haley49's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful 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

I loved the atmosphere and characters. They all felt sympathetic and realistic, especially when making frustrating decisions! I really liked the main couple and enjoyed their journey together. They had a beauty and the beast feel that was well-done. That said, this book had parts where I felt like I was missing something and there were a few moments where J was confused. I also wish the secondary characters, particularly Violeta’s brother got more time to shine. Overall, a great read with some surprisingly heart-tugging moments that left me emotional on these characters (Leta and Rowan’s) behalfs.

I hated Leta’s sacrifice though! I found myself wishing she died rather than give up her memories! That hurt😭😭

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, and Body horror

Moderate: Self harm, Death of parent, Vomit, Gore, and Grief

Minor: Sexual content and Suicide attempt

lillianreadsalot's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, and Suicide attempt

laura_2209's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Child abuse, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Death of parent, Physical abuse, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, and Self harm

caidyn's review

Just... not for me. I was excited about this book. I agree that the world is lush and interesting, but the writing and dialogue pushed me away.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, and Self harm

Moderate: Death of parent and Grief

anxiousnachos's review

dark slow-paced

3.75

Maybe closer to a 3.5? I really enjoyed this! I read most of it in one sitting. Monster love interest really is one of my absolute favourite tropes and it is done so fabulously here, Rowan was one of my favourite parts of this book. He wears so many EARRINGS and is BISEXUAL. There’s also creepy lake magic and dark death gods who whisper in your ear yes please sir I will take that. 

I do think it lacked a little substance though. At first I thought maybe it’s because I’ve read a lot of gothic adult books recently and so obviously a YA book is going to feel less dark/gory/horrific/intense compared to those. But the more I read, the more I felt there was something more genuinely missing, unrelated to the adult/YA divide. Despite that, I did thoroughly enjoy this book, bisexual monster boyfriends for the win, but it was quite an easy read and lacked a little depth for me.

Content warnings: self harm, child abuse, blood, sex, violence, some really gross vomit scenes, death of parent

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Child abuse, Blood, Death of parent, and Vomit

Moderate: Sexual content and Violence

taylorjayne's review against another edition

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Child abuse, and Death of parent

Minor: Injury/Injury detail and Sexual content

persephone_19's review

slow-paced

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

2.0

Repetitive. Clunky dialogue, very awkward at times. Over-explained a lot, but under-explained important plot elements. It got to the point where I was reading only dialogue and skipping whole pages. Love the idea, especially the idea of the magic system. It just needs work. I think it'll be better for younger people who don't care about that stuff and people that like somewhat cheesy romance. Also, I just found the main character's need for martyrdom really really annoying

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Death of parent, Self harm, and Vomit