Reviews with content warning for Body horror - The Chestnut Man

Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

The Chestnut Man by Søren Sveistrup

27 reviews

jessicas_bookshelf's review against another edition

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dark mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.0

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tajosima's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-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

2.0

So after reading this book one would think that apparently all the men are pervs and can’t see a woman without thinking of cheating on his wife with that new woman..nope, this left a bad taste in my mouth. The mystery itself was cool, but not good overall imo. And the reasons why the women were being killed also didn’t convince me.

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overbookedteacher's review

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
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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sarah_speaks's review against another edition

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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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jessy_reads's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No

3.5

Let me preface this review by saying that this is one of the best detective thrillers that I've ever read. It is the book's poor fate, however, that it is a detective thriller, and I tend not to enjoy detective thrillers.

Yet, I still picked this book up, hoping that it would be different. The Chestnut Man follows several third-person perspectives, including several police officers and Rosa Hartung, a minister who makes a comeback to the political scene a year after her daughter disappeared. I was hoping that the latter perspective would counteract some of the issues I tend to have with detective thrillers.

The reason that I don't pick up detective thrillers anymore is that I find some type of personal investment lacking. The main character, often a police officer, is given a case and simply does their job, but they are not personally attached to the crime that they are trying to solve. Additionally, detective thrillers follow many police characters, and those usually blend together for me. I find it hard to keep the characters apart and be involved with them.

The Chestnut Man is like other detective thrillers in that way. It has a large cast of police characters who are simply doing their job by trying to solve this case. For some reason, I didn't have any trouble keeping those characters apart, though. They are given backstories, although those play a minor role in the story, which might explain the difference. I had hoped that Rosa Hartung's perspective would provide the personal attachment to the murders, but we didn't follow her perspective as much as I would've liked.

Yet, I know that there are many people who do not have these issues with detective thrillers, and to them I'd like to say: pick up this book. Of all detective thrillers, this might be the best that I have ever read. It is put together cleverly, and the ending was surprising yet made sense. The story is fast-paced, making these 500-something pages fly by, and the writing is vivid, making you gruel at the murder scenes, cringe at the abuse scenes, and your heart will race during the action scenes. There is always something going on, yet the story remains easy to follow without straying too far from what it set out to do. I really enjoyed this book, as much as I could.

(And a little sidenote: I really enjoyed the descriptions of the Danish cities and landscapes. Took me back to two summers ago, and it was a lovely trip down memory lane.)

The Chestnut Man is a debut by Soren Sveistrup, who is also known as the author of the successful series The Killing. This book has also been made into a series and is available on Netflix.

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