Reviews tagging 'Torture'

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

32 reviews

joelle99's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Gore, Medical content, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, Body horror, Blood, and Violence

bird_song's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Gore

Moderate: Death of parent, Child death, Toxic friendship, Torture, and Kidnapping

jorzechovska666's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Animal death, Death of parent, Child death, Death, and Torture

Moderate: Vomit

Minor: Self harm

catboypaws's review

adventurous dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Body horror, Vomit, Torture, Suicide, Self harm, Violence, Medical trauma, Gun violence, Death of parent, Child death, Blood, Animal cruelty, and Animal death

arieloley's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

I absolutely loved this read!! I couldn’t put it down. My heart went out to all of the characters and I was genuinely invested and enthralled. The imagery and writing in general was incredibly realistic. I would’ve liked a bit more explanation about Byatt’s situation, about the Tox, and the end felt a little bit vague, but overall I loved it and would reread for sure. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Murder, Physical abuse, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, and Violence

keen's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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

3.5

Initially, I felt off about this book. It didn't feel like horror, it felt like a thriller. High-stakes and tense moments, but nothing scary past the graphic body horror. As a body horror fan, that was enough to keep me going, even if I wasn't sure I was reading a horror book.

It took me until halfway through to realize I went into this book with the wrong expectations. Not every horror story involves running away from a murderer or trying to escape the attention of a ghost. This is a story about being trapped in a bleak situation and trying to survive when everything is out to kill you. It's about the strength of love and friendship that powers you through every horror you face.

Once I realized that, the emotional horror of this book hit me. Every paragraph made me question if there was some ounce of hope in the end. I can say I was satisfied with what I received, even if in the end it felt like I had no idea where I was being led until I was punched in the gut.

Additionally, I enjoyed the characters. There were times when I was angry at them, wondering why the girls were behaving so irrationally and why the adults felt so unhelpful. I had to remind myself of what it would be like to be a 14 to 17 year old girl, trapped on an island with a virus twisting your body into a mockery of itself, with little to no hope of surviving. Alternatively, I had to imagine what it would be like to take care of these children and watch as they die off, one by one. There's no way I could react logically in either scenario. The characters did the best they could do in the situation they were forced into and trapped in.

I admire stories that make me read deeper into the thoughts of the characters. To me, a good horror story makes me compare how I would face each situation to how the characters do. In this case, every event made me want to throw up, run away, or cry.

So, yeah, this story gave me the emotional turmoil. I was joyfully horrified.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Grief, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Suicide, Torture, Violence, and Vomit

Moderate: Animal death, Eating disorder, Genocide, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Mental illness, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Bullying and Cursing

ppixxie's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

I've been putting off reading this for the LONGEST time for no goddamn reason. Then my library hold(s) came in. Oh my GOD was I not disappointed. Going in, I thought there would be a lot more horror/body horror elements/cosmic horror-esque elements, which was probably why I found it hard to get into the first half of the book where it focuses mainly on world-building. (The beginning mainly reads like a dystopian survival horror?) 

But boy does it pick up. I love to read a nasty female character, and this is no exception. I can't talk about a lot of the stuff that happens, because it's spoilers and this book is a nice one to go into with 0 knowledge. It ends on an ambiguous note (almost a sequel hook, and I've heard whispers around that there's going to be a sequel or something??) but I liked how it ended, and I probably would have been satisfied with just this book as a standalone.

Anyways, if you like gay horror, definitely check this one out!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Vomit, Body horror, Child death, Chronic illness, Abandonment, Animal death, Blood, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Murder, Self harm, Suicide, and Torture

Moderate: Eating disorder and Emotional abuse

Minor: Bullying and Cursing

mellasthoughts's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

2.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Death, Gore, and Torture

Minor: Animal cruelty and Animal death

moonlitemuseum's review

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Several things came to mind when I was reading this book, each alone and then occurring simultaneously:

The dismal disquiet of the school setting in Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. The loamy prose in Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach series, an attempt to block out something encroaching that may very well be, is, already inside you. The character "Vriska Serket" from online web behemoth "Homestuck". The mechanic in the visual novel "We Know The Devil" where two friends pair up and leave the third flagging sadly behind. The promotional image often used for "Girls' Last Tour", which I have yet to read, but which haunts me with how lonely and determined it's protagonists look -- all suited up in hardy jackets and thick boots against a cruel and endless post-apocalyptic background.

2020 was a hard year to read Wilder Girls in, but maybe that's why I stuck fast to it like a lichen on a rock.  In a time of ever-worsening climate change and chaos around an illness, fiction helped mask it enough that I could swallow it, and the mask Wilder Girls wears is very thin. Practically translucent. It's about a disease that's pervasive, infectious and unavoidable, and it's also about how badly everyone fucks up the response to that disease even with plenty of advance warning. It's about friendship, sort of, but it's also about how little you can really know anyone. It's about crabs. It's about a landscape that's beautiful and awful, compelling and repellent. It's about body horror. It's about

kissing your most difficult friend

. It's about the innate horror of something moving behind what you can see. It's about...

Wilder Girls isn't a book I would recommend someone to read if they like tidy endings or even compassionate ones with lots of optimism.

It has a dour, difficult ending. You don't learn all the answers. All three of the main characters are in dire and possibly inescapable circumstances.

I liked the ending very much. 

I would recommend this book to anyone who loves difficult fictional girls of all pedigrees, with a strong caveat for the medical, physiological and

parasitic

horror contained within it. It was a difficult and upsetting book to read for 2020, but that may be why it was a great book to close out the year with. I can't wait to read more like it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Medical content, Medical trauma, Self harm, Suicide, and Violence

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Gun violence, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Terminal illness, and Torture

Minor: Body shaming, Bullying, and Homophobia

leemused's review

adventurous dark mysterious sad medium-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, and Torture