Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

The Chestnut Man by Søren Sveistrup

11 reviews

dev921's review

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Rape, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Cursing, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Medical content, Animal death, Confinement, Kidnapping, Death, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Blood, Medical trauma, Murder, Pedophilia, and Sexual violence

clarabooksit's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Murder, Rape, Child death, Child abuse, Pedophilia, Violence, Kidnapping, Body horror, Racism, Sexism, Misogyny, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Abandonment, Animal death, Blood, Confinement, Torture, Alcoholism, Stalking, Mental illness, and Gore

Minor: Fire/Fire injury

sarakuba's review

dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Rape, Animal death, Sexual assault, Pedophilia, Murder, Violence, Blood, Grief, Kidnapping, Child abuse, Torture, Sexual violence, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Domestic abuse, Car accident, Classism, Fire/Fire injury, and Islamophobia

michelles_book_nook's review against another edition

challenging 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? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

⚠️ TW: murder, torture, animal death, sexual assault, rape, child abuse, paedophilia, domestic violence, abduction ⚠️ Wow this is such an intense and addicting crime thriller! This book follows the Danish police as they begin discovering brutally murdered women alongside Chestnut Man dolls and as Naia Thulin and Mark Hess become partners on this high profile case they find a mysterious piece of evidence that sends all of their theories reeling as it links to the disappearance of a young girl a year prior who was never found and presumed dead with the killer being behind bars and the case long since closed. And now with a suspected serial killer waiting to strike again they are racing against the clock to figure out all the pieces to this complex and harrowing case. This book left my brain like mush for all the right reasons! It is such an heart pounding page turner filled with twists that will send your mind racing to connect the dots. Admittedly I found it a bit slow to begin with before it really hooked my attention but from that point on I could not put it down or stop thinking about who the killer could be (and trust me I considered all possibilities, or at least who I thought were possibilities) and when it was finally revealed I was speechless. One of my favourite things was how the book was finished so well by explaining the beginning of the book and tied off a couple loose ends perfectly. Overall, I highly recommend this book and I will definitely be on the look out for more books from this author.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Animal death, Rape, Murder, Sexual assault, Kidnapping, Child abuse, and Pedophilia

Moderate: Domestic abuse

zaydabarros's review

challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Sexual violence, and Pedophilia

Moderate: Animal death and Child abuse

booksbytheglass's review

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.75

🚨 my unpopular review alert!!!! 🚨

okay, first of all, y’all truly lied to me and said this was the creepiest book you’ve ever read. was it creepy? sure. was it gory? definitely. was it horror? I would say…. no? it’s borderline at best. 

I really wanted to like this one - especially after reading all of “the girl who” series and loving the dutch nordic aspects of it. HOWEVER, this one just wouldn’t die (I mean … end …)

yes, the book is dauntingly long, and yes, it’s drawn out - but the chapters are super short which makes flipping through it super easy! it really didn’t feel as large as it looked. 

the characters definitely took a bit to warm up to, and remember all of their names my goodness, and I think that’s what put me off the most. the chapters flipped POVs so quickly that I barely got one scene down before I was thrust into another with another character that I knew absolutely nothing about. 

I think if the book had stuck with just thulin, hess and rosa’s POV, I would have felt a lot better about keeping up with the storyline. 

and for those of you who kept telling me to wait and wait and wait for the plot twist? I did, and it really wasn’t anything to write home about. once rosa’s reveal happened, I pretty much put the pieces together myself a lot quicker than the detectives did lololol :’)

I’m very glad I dove into this one and tackled it, and I would recommend it to anyone interested - but probably not high on my re-read list 👀

rating: 2.75 stars 
wine pairing: denmark claret wine 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore and Child abuse

Moderate: Rape and Sexual assault

Minor: Animal death

sarah_speaks's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Murder, Body horror, Incest, Infidelity, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Rape, Stalking, Pedophilia, Gore, Blood, Sexism, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Death of parent, Death, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Mental illness, Fire/Fire injury, Confinement, and Sexual content

Minor: Forced institutionalization and Alcoholism

horizonous's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• 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: Animal death, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Murder, and Torture

Moderate: Alcoholism, Blood, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Pedophilia, Sexual content, and Violence

Minor: Child death, Infidelity, Rape, Sexism, Sexual harassment, and Xenophobia

◦ Animal death = Dismemberment

corinnab's review

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

5 stars! What a fantastic intricately woven thriller!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is by the same author who wrote the novel that was turned into the amazing TV series, "The Killing", which was picked up by Netflix mid-way through. This book was graphic, dark, and gritty (similar to Pretty Girls but a very different storyline). It is long but it is worth it. I read it slow and the pages took awhile to get through (not sure if it was that they were big pages or something to do with the translation). This is not your typical thriller, but moreso a cinematic slow build. There are so many key players and you never really know who is responsible for what until the end. Although there are so many characters, I did not find myself confused. The characters are flawed, but real, and there are so many sick people in this story, but they all have a story. I loved this so much!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Medical content, Murder, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Kidnapping

Minor: Addiction, Vomit, Suicidal thoughts, Stalking, and Sexual assault

thatsssorachael's review

challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

While I'm aware this is a translated work, I still have to add a couple criticism's about the writing style. I found it VERY hard to understand who was talking, as 3 people would be talking but for an entire paragraph of dialogue it wouldn't clarify who was speaking. This led to some confusion. I also wasn't familiar with most of the names, didn't realize a couple were not the gender I thought until we were well under way, and I had to keep looking up how to pronounce names. I think both of these problems would be avoidable with an audiobook. 

That being said, I really enjoyed the crime aspect. It was very fucked up, a lot going on for sure. But I found it compelling, and while I did figure out who did it about halfway through, it didn't take (much) away from the ending. If there were to be a book 2, I'd absolutely read it. 

This book is very heavy, so read this only if you're in a good place. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Torture, Gun violence, and Child abuse

Moderate: Rape, Animal death, Domestic abuse, and Child death