Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

90 reviews

cmuise's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Car accident, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Alcohol, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Death, and Forced institutionalization

magicant'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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Gun violence, Rape, Alcoholism, Cursing, Sexual assault, Forced institutionalization, and Violence

Moderate: Medical trauma, Mental illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Self harm, Vomit, Suicide, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual harassment, Violence, Physical abuse, Confinement, Sexual content, Addiction, and Drug use

booksnakekel's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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: Animal death, Drug abuse, Gore, Grief, Mental illness, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Child death, Forced institutionalization, Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Rape, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Alcoholism, Body horror, Cursing, Child abuse, Drug use, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, Sexual content, and Violence

ellie_rowo's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Emotional abuse, Animal death, Blood, Grief, Sexual content, Cursing, Child abuse, Death, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Animal cruelty, Cancer, and Gun violence

hnelson510's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective relaxing tense slow-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? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Child abuse, Gore, and Gun violence

joshoonet's review against another edition

challenging mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

• The very core story of the Navidson Record is incredibly interesting and thrilling. I love the descriptions of their explorations and the uncertainty that comes with them.
• Zampanòs huge passages of discussing certain words and picking apart their meanings nearly made me stop reading, out of pure disconnection with the content. Even if it related to the core story. My god.
• Can only recommend checking out the appendixes as one goes along, they provide a more thorough understanding of the text. Although the same can't be said about the hints to other chapters. That got too confusing for me.
• LOVED the code that could be found and potentially deciphered here and there. I'm sure i missed some too.
• Overall: high concentration needed to read this, but worth it in the end. I'll keep thinking about it for a while, but won't be picking it up again anytime soon.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Addiction, Violence, Sexual content, Panic attacks/disorders, Gore, and Mental illness

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Alcohol, Rape, Alcoholism, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Sexism, Death, and Drug use

Minor: Infidelity, Death of parent, Abandonment, Cancer, Car accident, and Vomit

Long, purely informative passages about the background and meaning of specific terms or topics can be skipped or skimmed. On the topic of sexual content and misogyny:

truant's stories are laden with viewing women only as sexual objects; these parts can be skipped without losing too much of the plot.

blobvis's review against another edition

dark emotional informative mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• 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

Alright people be like "I can't describe this book" and I think they're not trying hard enough lol

Anyways, this books follows the story of Johnny who found the so called Navidson records, an essay about a film that probably has never existed and is written by the man who lived in the apartment before him. As the reader you are experiencing the story of Navidson at the same time as Johnny is. Which it think it pretty neat. What makes this book fun however is not the endless, quite boring footnotes with Johnny's drugs and sex life, or the long explanation about why there is a parallel between Navidson and his brother and a part of the Bible. What makes it interesting is how the writer uses lettering, spacing and the layout of the pages to emphasise the scenes. Something that made me laugh in wonder because I did not expect to have tot turn the book upside down to read it further.
Sometimes the pages only contain a few words making you turn the pages quickly and feeling the tension of the scene and the feelings of the characters in twofold.
As well as I think that it's interesting that the deeper Navidson goes into the house the more unstable Johnny becomes. I really like how there are so much parallels between the essay and Johnny's life, and between the characters in the essay itself (although the essay seems to be mainly written to find those parallels). I do love the editors' footnotes, they made me laugh. And in the end I didn't mind Johnny's footnotes that much because they became less frequent and more focused aka he stopped doing drugs and stopped talking about how much he fucked. And I did like reading his last notes on the book.

In any case I basically read a rather interesting essay instead of a book so 4 stars because it's just really creative and I love creativity 

And as I heard there are some secrets in it too as well as an dedicated community to find it. Not my cup of tea but maybe for others the reason to read it. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Child abuse, and Sexual content

Minor: Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Drug use, Death of parent, Addiction, Emotional abuse, and Physical abuse

carrionkid's review against another edition

5.0

Unlike nothing I've ever read before, though I definitely think I need a reread or two to fully glean all the layers to it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Forced institutionalization, Drug abuse, Death of parent, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Death, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Animal death

apersonfromflorida's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Drug use, Death, and Sexual content

Moderate: Child abuse, Blood, Drug abuse, and Rape

Minor: Vomit, Medical content, and Cancer

danaaliyalevinson's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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

4.0

I liked it! Sometimes I struggled with its rather intentional meandering structure but I appreciated the maze it was laying out and what it was meant to evoke from the reader. I also appreciated the ways in which the book itself felt like a metaphor for the psyche of its dual book within a book authors. I will say, the book is pretty damn misogynistic, so I struggled with that a bit. But overall, it was a fun ride.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Death, Drug abuse, Mental illness, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Confinement, Sexual content, Violence, Child abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Murder, Physical abuse, Rape, Blood, Bullying, Car accident, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual violence, Toxic friendship, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis