Reviews tagging 'Gore'

The Shape of Darkness by Laura Purcell

4 reviews

redroseses's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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linguaphile412's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • 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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caidyn's review against another edition

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emotional medium-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

2.75

Every time I started to get into this book, I then found myself uninterested. It's not that this is a bad book, it just didn't draw me in like I anticipated.

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ceallaighsbooks's review

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dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

“How often it has been remarked that the Gift manifests itself after a period of severe illness!… The Power always follows sickness and frequently comes to the gentler sex. The lower in status they are, the stronger they seem to grow. Deprivation, frustration and discontent: these are the grounds in which mediumship breeds.” 
 
TITLE—The Shape of Darkness 
AUTHOR—Laura Purcell 
PUBLISHED—2021 
 
GENRE—historical fiction 
SETTING—Bath, England in mid-1800’s 
MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—ghosts, spiritualism, scéances, Victorian England, mental illness, trauma, grief, illness, family, betrayal, jealousy 
 
WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 
CHARACTERS—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 
STORY/PLOT—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 
BONUS ELEMENT/S—I can’t say what my favorite thing about this book was because it’s a total spoiler but let’s just say that I was VERY excited about it. 😈🤣 
PHILOSOPHY—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 
 
“If there’s one thing she understands about grief, it’s how it chokes: the fingers of death, squeezing the throats of the living.” 
 
The strength of Purcell’s stories lie in the ambiguities of the reader being able to figure out what actually happens in the book. The events and characters walk the line between the trauma and pain of real life and something a bit more on the supernatural side of things so that by the end of the story you’re left wondering what is real, what is imagined—are ghosts real? are monsters real? Or are the things the characters experience reactions to the trauma of their lives? Or is that itself the very real genesis of the supernatural? 
 
Another thing I love about Purcell’s books is the absorbing atmosphere and the incredibly in-depth historical details she includes to real create a world that fits the action and characters of her stories so perfectly. I’ll definitely be preordering all her future books and can’t wait to read The Corset—the only one of hers left that I haven’t read yet. 😂 
 
“This is what Agnes wanted: to converse with the dead, yet she is speechless before their eternity.” 
 
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 
 
TW // grief, gore, graphic illness (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!) 
 
Further Reading— 
  • The Silent Companions, by Laura Purcell
  • The Séance, by John Harwood—TBR
  • The Last Séance, by Agatha Christie—TBR
  • Affinity, by Sarah Waters—TBR
  • The Luminaries, by Eleanor Catton


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