Reviews tagging 'Grief'

The Last Word by Taylor Adams

80 reviews

carissa230's review against another edition

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

4.5

Emma is living in isolation. The only company she has is her dog and a neighbor she plays hangman with through their windows with binoculars. When the neighbor suggests she read a book, she is shocked by how much she dislikes it. She puts up a 1-star review and the author immediately responds. When she starts feeling someone in the room with her while she sleeps and thinks there is someone outside she wonders if she pushed the author too far. 

This was so fast-paced. I read this book in 1 day! It's been a while since I just took in a whole book in a day. The only reason it's not a 5-star for me is I saw one of the plot twists coming and I think it was supposed to be a shocking one. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Blood, Grief, and Murder

Moderate: Animal cruelty and Child death

mflynn8908's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Infertility, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Stalking, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child death and Car accident

Minor: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Blood, Vomit, Mass/school shootings, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

ohhthehorrors's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Child death, Death, Gun violence, Infertility, Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Stalking, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

minimicropup's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Violence, Grief, and Murder

Moderate: Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

Minor: Animal cruelty

Animal cruelty is on page involving a dog, but for peace of mind it is via close calls, without gratuitous physical violence

the dog lives after consuming food contaminated with fatal objects

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emeraldsanto's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Child death, Death, Eating disorder, Gore, Gun violence, Infertility, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Stalking, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

steed17's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood and Murder

Minor: Alcoholism, Bullying, Child death, Infertility, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Grief

gm_vak's review against another edition

adventurous funny tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Suicide, Violence, Vomit, Grief, and Car accident

ruthypoo2's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Death, Gun violence, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Grief, Stalking, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Child death, Car accident, and Death of parent

soobooksalot's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.25

Taylor Adams has pretty much guaranteed himself all-positive reviews for his latest book. No one-star ratings here!
 The Last Word is a genuinely gripping thriller. Like, whip-through-the-pages good.
 You've got an off-kilter author of some crappy horror novels, a reader giving a one-star review, a secluded beach house and some sneaky secrets.
 The Last Word is right back to the fantastic cinema-ready thriller Taylor Adams established in No Exit. There's some awesome twisty creepiness here!
 Unplug that landline and sharpen your katana - recommended!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Child death, Gun violence, Infertility, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Car accident, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

kcbatts's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Grief, Stalking, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child death and Suicide

Minor: Infertility