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Reviews tagging 'Vomit'

The Last Word by Taylor Adams

45 reviews

theinstabookworm's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

THE GOOD: Holy twists! Some I saw coming, but some I definitely didn't. This book gives you whiplash. I don't know if I've read a book with that many twists. Just when I thought the last twist had been revealed and the story was wrapping up, I'd look and see that there was still so much of the story left to read. I wondered many times if the twist I just read was the last, only to read another one shortly after. A book with this many twists has the potential to be really good, but can also be really bad if it relies too heavily on the twists and not enough on the plot. After DNFing NO EXIT by this author I went into this without high expectations, but I have to say I'm impressed! I also liked that there was a story within the story. Also, the dog is OK! Sorry if that's a spoiler.

THE BAD: The writing wasn't my favourite. I also wanted more suspense and shock factor.

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rachelwhicker06's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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

4.0


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honey_coated_chapters'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? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

°:. *₊ ° . ° .•
𝑹𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈: 2//5 
𝑵𝒖𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒇 𝒑𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒔: 327
𝑮𝒆𝒏𝒓𝒆: thriller/suspense 
𝑸𝒖𝒊𝒄𝒌 𝒕𝒂𝒌𝒆𝒔: 
•isolated setting
•determined MC
•multiple bad guys 
𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝒊𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆: slasher films (think: scream and the strangers) and deep diving into Reddit threads about murder mysteries, incels and books. 
———————————————————————
First and most importantly — the dog doesn’t die. Now, this book was hard to rate because I actually did enjoy it, the plot is wildly different and over the top like a real slasher but, towards the middle it got so incredibly repetitive I had to put it down. Yes she’s running from the bad guy, yes there’s no way out, yes he’s outsmarted her again and thought of every conceivable way to keep her how does he keep doing that? My oh my. 
———————————————————————
It was good in that — I felt the tension and I was genuinely finding myself rooting for our main character to make it through. I also absolutely love slashers and this definitely gave me a nice suspenseful vibe. The killer was absolutely disgusting — the author did a tremendous job in making this guy gross and detestable. There’s a twist towards the end I saw coming, was briefly dispelled and then came to light, so that was wonderfully written. Aside from the repetitiveness, the ending made me really upset, but I’ll give it to the author that it was impeccably written… 

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caitlynischeckedout's review against another edition

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4.0

Gosh this was a hard one to rate. And not just because I’m afraid the author will come after me, ha!

The premise of this pulled me in immediately. I couldn’t wait to get this in the mail and bumped it up to the top of my TBR quickly. I was so invested in figuring out the ending I read it pretty much straight through, I could not put it down. It was tense and I *needed* to find out what was going to happen but at the same time, it felt like a lot of it was more drawn out than necessary. Was it just that good at tension? I’m not sure, but I was getting impatient closer to the end and found myself wanting to skim to skip through some scenes. 

I think the author’s goal was to make the villain cringey and unlikeable and he definitely succeeded at that. I was visibly cringing and had to set the book down at several points to recover, hahah! This book also includes the author’s story in between chapters, which is both interesting and creepy also. I do like that you got to see how the narrators differed in their viewpoints and the story they were telling. 

I also couldn’t help but like Emma as a main character. She made some mistakes but I liked that she never laid down and gave up, she kept fighting! I liked the message that even if it’s just for your dog- keep fighting. 

I do feel that one of the plot twists was a bit overdone.
I’m not a big fan of the schizophrenic villain trope. It’s been done so many times and just vilifies the mental illness. And it was a red herring! Which just made it feel even more unnecessary.
I also feel like the ending went on forever. I thought the plot points were interesting but I was ready to get to the end by that point. 

What made it so hard to rate though was the way I tore through it! I was on the edge of my seat the whole time! So even though there were some points I wasn’t a fan of and you have to suspend some serious disbelief at points, I’m rounding upwards and I think I will be checking out the author’s other works! 

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kerrygetsliterary's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75


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greatestheights's review against another edition

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dark 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? Yes

2.0

I refuse to hide this extremely spoilery review for this very important reason: The dog survives! The book will spend an almost cruel amount of time trying to convince you otherwise, though, so be warned. 

More spoilers from here on out, as I bravely dare to rate and review a thriller about a murderous writer going after the bored, grieving woman who roasted his book on Amazon. I too am bored and grieving, but this is Goodreads, and I promise not to be too mean.

Anyway. 

I am once again absolutely begging thriller writers to please, for the love of God, stop writing villains with mental illness. It is not the fun plot device you think it is! I've known and cared for two people who have Howard's diagnosis, and it's not a goddamn punch line. People with mental illness are far more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators of it. Too, Howard's diagnosis was a red herring. It added nothing to his character except to perpetuate a bunch of gross stereotypes. 

That aside, I enjoyed a lot of things about this book. It was entertaining, creepy, full of twists, and the aforementioned (alive!) dog should have been the narrator. I also spent a ton of time rolling my eyes, sending screenshots to my best friend demanding to know how there could be so many hours left in the audiobook by the fifth time I thought it surely had to be drawing to a close, and wondering how many more times Howard was going to bisect something. 

This is just a PSA to all white ladies: If you smell synthetic butter around your remote rental house and think a shadowy figure is watching you sleep, do not pass go, do not collect whatever the fuck, do not CONTINUE BLITHELY LIVING IN THE HOUSE — just leave. Also, don't play Hangman with random old men who have telescopes. Also also, how did this genius astrophysicist warrior woman not know what Hangman was?!

A BIG TW BELOW:

tw tw tw tw infant loss!!!

Idk why I keep picking up books that have surprise infant loss plotlines, but lol, I keep finding them. The detail was particularly brutal, and even though I knew it was coming, I sobbed for the last hour of this book. 

Lots of other stuff to say about the plot and characters and Emma's interesting range of choices, but I've truly gone on long enough and I'm still not sure how I want to rate it. Twoish stars because...*gestures broadly* 

Taylor Adams, if you're reading this, please don't murder me with a katana.

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cates_reading_nook's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Reader be warned: Do not read this book in spurts. This is a hunker-down, bring water and caloric reinforcements, and buckle up. This book grabbed me from the second page, and never once let me go. It is funny, and twisty, and empowering. So, so, so good. So, so, so creepy. And I promise I'm not just writing this so I don't get murdered. 

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mflynn8908's review against another edition

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

4.0

The main character irritated me right from the start. She seemed rude, annoying and overall just mean however, once you learn her back story you understand why. 
I did guess what was going to happen about 50% into the story but the author had some twists towards the end that made me second guess if I was correct or not so it did keep me invested in reading the story. 
This is the second book I’ve read from this author so far and I can say that I actually enjoyed this one much more than I enjoyed no exit. 

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ohhthehorrors's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious 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


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minimicropup's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Determined, calamitous, suspenseful 

We are following our MC house-sitting someone's vacation house for the winter and another person who has been watching our MC and scheming. Ominous events happen over the course of the MCs stay catalyzed by their one-star review of a self-published horror/thriller book.
  • Set in winter along an isolated stretch of coast in Washington, USA
 
🔔 Somehow the narration on the audio wasn't working for me. I think it just killed the suspense / darkness. The narrator wasn't bad, just maybe not a book that was good on audio for me personally. 

🙃 Oops:
No rating because this genre / plot just isn't for me (not b/c I'm scared to rate this, I swear 😉). I knew the genre and plot going in, so I wasn't mislead, I just had a serious case of FOMO when this was released. It's heavy on the action/adventure fight-for-your life plot so I had to skim a bit as I usually do for this genre, and I can't tell if it's because some scenes are too drawn out or because I always lose interest too quickly. The later part of the plot made me feel exhausted, but it wasn't OTT or poorly done, just taxing for me! I loved the tongue-in-cheek humour sprinkled throughout, meaningful commentary on the impact of book reviews and thriller/suspense/horror tropes, and creative narrative POVs. 

Mood Reading Match Up: 
  • Home invasion fight-for-your-life survival trope
  • Tragedy guiding character development
  • Isolated locked-ish room suspense thriller
  • Action-adventure fight/hide/flee scenes

Content Heads-Up: Home invasion and stalking. Death of a child. Car accident. [No pet deaths].

Format: Scribd Audio and Kindle

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