Reviews tagging 'Death'

Seed by Ania Ahlborn

41 reviews

bigbadreads's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark 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

4.0

the last page gave me goosebumps very great read def will be revisiting 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

reburkah's review against another edition

Go to review page

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

4.25

I don't think the plot of this book was anything particularly groundbreaking but I really enjoyed it. I found the way it was written to flow really well and I found the characters, while incredibly flawed, to be believable in their thoughts and actions. I really liked it and it creeped me out! 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

tinksreviews's review

Go to review page

dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

lexi17d's review

Go to review page

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

4.5

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

farleighelse's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging 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? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Decent, not as good as her book Brother. Still worth reading
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

kenzielireads's review against another edition

Go to review page

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

3.0

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

dale1997's review against another edition

Go to review page

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

4.5

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

calexio's review

Go to review page

dark emotional 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? It's complicated

2.0

I don't usually - or ever - write reviews of the things that I have read but felt compelled to write one for this book after seeing how highly rated it is by a lot of people because frankly that baffles me.

The book is fine. It is written competently enough and I was never actively bored reading it. But that's all I can really "positively" say about it. At no point did anything surprising or unexpected happen and I am genuinely surprised to read multiple reviews that didn't see where this story was going from the first handful of pages. I don't mean to come across all "oh-ho-I-am-so-smart-and-genre-savvy" here, by the way, because I am thick as two short planks, trust me. But everything here has been done before and better.
Ominous vagueness about something in a character's childhood? Check. Shadowy creature in the corner of bedrooms? Check. Strange creepy noises? Check. Creepily standing over someone sleeping? Check. Spooky rictus smiles? Check. A young, sweet child using foul language? Check. Deliberately causing the death of a beloved family pet? Check. An ominous black figure turning up in happy childhood photos? Check.
And on and on. Somtimes things are greater than the sum of their parts, true. Not here though.

As our main point of view character, Jack is maddening.
I get the impression that we are meant to believe that his inability to act is a result of Mr Scratch's (also, Mr Scratch? Really?) influence. Words change as they pass his lips, etc. etc. This should be terrifying but something about Jack's reactions to this, and the number of times it is brought back again and again throughout the book, just makes it fall flat and repetitive rather than building any kind of tension or any sort of emotional reaction from me.
. I could be wildly missing the mark here, but if there's actual interesting depth to his reactions to the story, I sure missed them.

I will say that I don't mind Aimee the way other reviews here seem to have issue with. Here is a person who has lived at least a decade having to try and bridge the simmering resentments and mutual disrespect her parents and husband share for each other, while her husband wastes time and money on a dream that doesn't look to be going anywhere. Then her family is involved in a terrifying car crash and
her youngest daughter starts being creepy as hell while her husband, from her perspective, stonewalls her and refuses to engage with her very reasonable fears and attempts at trying to find solutions.
Not to harp on the point here, but while none of this is original, I feel she is at least understandable in her attitude.

Far too many words written about an, honestly, so-so book. Two stars, didn't hate my time with it but I will remember nothing about it within a couple months.  
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

mothercoconuts's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

sarah984's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious 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? It's complicated

2.0

This was an interesting take on the family curse idea, but I just didn't think it was that well-executed. None of the characters are particularly memorable, and I think the possession happens too fast - the father thinks often about what the daughter used to be like, but she's barely ever like that on the page so it's hard to get invested. The writing uses a lot of mangled metaphors and weird adjectives (so many things are skittering, someone’s dialogue slithers, hearts are hammering in people's chests like three times per page). Also I know it's part of the theme of inevitability but SO many times in this book the main character would think of what he should do and then just completely fail to do it and it got really annoying. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings