Reviews with content warning for Suicidal thoughts - Будинок Старлінгів

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Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

Будинок Старлінгів by Alix E. Harrow

48 reviews

bibliomania_express's review against another edition

5.0

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

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow is a Gothic fantasy romance about secrets, determination, and the fierce love that defies the world. It's about a girl abandoned by the world, left to con and steal to make her brother a better life, learning what it is to have a home and stay.

It's about a boy trapped by grief, learning to let the light in, learning to take the world off his shoulders.

It's about everything wonderful about small towns and everything horrifying about small towns.

It's about story, rumour, and names, dreams, tevenge, and forgiveness. And what makes a family and a home, in the end.

This was just an all around fantastic book. The writing is so good - lyric and descriptive but also tense and atmosphetic. It melds the Gothic house with fairytales and mythology so well. I enjoyed the ploy and the slow meld into the fantastical elements. I also enjoyed the footnotes, although I wish there had been more of them.

Content Warnings

pweav's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous dark funny mysterious fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I loved this book so much I read it within 48 hours. It’s got everything I’d want in a horror/mystery novel. Extremely rich storytelling and wordsmithing. The characters & the plot are well developed and I love how the author makes “ugly” & “unlovable” things lovable. Especially the cat :-) The only reason I subtracted .25 from the rating is because I wish the Black characters were actively involved in the plot line instead of just having their stories told through the white characters. I also wish they’d dived into the main character’s unpacking of white supremacy more, especially as it relates to her Nicaraguan-American brother experiencing racism in a small town and the white characters’ lack of understanding of what would actually be helpful in supporting him.

Content Warnings

celery's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-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

Content Warnings

typewritersandteacups's review against another edition

4.75

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Content Warnings

hazelsnoot's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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

Content Warnings

purplepenning's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Content Warnings

kaigar96's review against another edition

3.25

mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I really really wanted to like this Starling House. And I did, for the first few chapters. Unfortunately, it just fell flat.

Starling House is a fascinating idea for a story: a gothic house, a disappearing author, a town rooted in mystery and secrets. All the ingredients sound like the recipe for the perfect fall book, but they just weren’t enough.

Each chapter followed the same format (Opal goes to clean the house, Arthur is broody, Opal goes home to her life of misfortunes, Opal loves her brother) and repeat. For a book that was just over 300 pages it felt far too long and could’ve been, honestly, 100 pages shorter. By 200 pages in, I wanted to put it down and forget about it.

Let’s talk about why the book wasn’t enough for me:

Footnotes: an interesting writing technique, but wasn’t used consistently. I don’t understand why an author would use footnotes and then stop stop about half way through.
Romance: if there’s going to be a romance, there needs to be more to make to me care. Or use none and keep it as a friendship.
Characters: if these characters have a hard life, show don’t tell. I get it, they live in a motel. I get it, she works hard. But show some of these scenes more to make me care about them.
Themes: the book follows interesting themes about marginalized peoples, slavery, etc. but I wish it was incorporated more organically, especially in the beginning. I felt like there was almost too much exposition towards the end to tell us how these characters and their experiences intertwine.

To me, Starling House suffered from first draft syndrome. It had everything I love in books, but just wasn’t executed in a way I could love. I recommend trying out the first few chapters. If you’re really interested and don’t find the pacing too slow, then this might be for you.

Content Warnings