Reviews tagging 'Bullying'

The Deep by Nick Cutter

12 reviews

vee3105's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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? No

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, and Animal cruelty

Moderate: Death, Bullying, and Grief

Minor: Murder

the_bitextual's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

1.5

There's two, maybe three good story's hiding in this. I'll tell you right now a spoiler, the Get's the big bad disease you read about in the blurbs, has NOTHING to do with the story. It's useless and could be excised, but that's the first good, wasted story idea. If this had been a character driven tale about the Gets, boy would I have given it five stars. The second good story is the Ambrosia, but it devolves into a mishmash of horror tropes. Together, it fails to land. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Bullying, Child abuse, Body horror, Child death, Animal death, and Blood

esslesmcgee's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Incest, Fatphobia, Animal cruelty, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Gore, Emotional abuse, Body horror, Blood, Grief, and Confinement

Moderate: Pandemic/Epidemic, Cursing, Medical content, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual assault, and Kidnapping

Minor: Body shaming and Bullying

aparker89's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-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? It's complicated

4.25

A titillating journey into the Mariana Trench and the mind. Be prepared for the monsters in your closet to come put to visit as you dive deep into the realm of horror! A well written story that leaves much to the tortures of your imagination! 
Find yourself stuck in a loop of endless and increasingly terrifying nightmares with Luke who just wants to help save mankind... don't look to hard at the shadows, they might be looking back!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Gore, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Medical trauma, Fatphobia, Addiction, Animal cruelty, Blood, Body shaming, Bullying, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, and Eating disorder

Moderate: Self harm, Suicide attempt, Cursing, Physical abuse, and Incest

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Pandemic/Epidemic

trippyotter's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

3.0

I'll admit my rating is based heavily upon what happened to LB, I'm so angry about what transpired and that an animal would be allowed to suffer in such a horrific way. 

Also, while reading the book, I felt it could have easily been 50-100 pages shorter, but come to find out all the excessive trips down memory road and the journey entries was actually critical to the ending. 

After several memory flashbacks, I was about ready to close the book when Luke was reading the journal. It just went on forever. Then what happened to LB angered me so much that I was basically emotionally numb (maybe that was the intent?) that I just finished the book. 

I'm not sure if I'd truly recommend this to anyone, but if you decide to take the plug, beware of the various triggers.

Triggers: missing child, child abuse, child sexual assault, emotional abuse, toxic relationships, death, gore, grief, animal abuse, animal testing, animal death 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Bullying, Child death, Death, Kidnapping, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Death of parent

smahlcat's review

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

As with The Troop, the descriptions of unspeakable horror were spot on. The monsters had just that hint of Pennywise the Clown that made them just disturbing enough to hate spotting my cat peaking around my door at night.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Body horror, Gore, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Bullying, Confinement, Emotional abuse, and Death

tormlen's review

dark tense

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

2.5

I have lots of mixed feelings on this one. First, READ THE TRIGGER WARNINGS BEFORE YOU READ THIS IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE. I will say that the trigger warnings prepared me for much, but not how borderline hatefully this author writes fat people. I hated the character of the mother, Bethany. She felt evil and two dimensional, a monster, not a flawed human. It does not help that the author uses her size to illustrate her monstrosity every chance he gets. I got so sick of hearing about "her bulk." We get it; she's fat! It doesn't make her any more or less of a monster. That's all in her actions. The story of how she gains her weight also doesn't feel believable to me, and I feel like the choice of porridge was intended to just make it feel even grosser. It would have been nice to have a foil for her, a fat person who is actually likable. Granted, that would mean having more than one likable human character in the book.

That aside, parts of this book moved fast, and I couldn't put it down. I loved the setting. The story was engaging. I actually don't mind that the 'gets is abandoned once they board the Trieste. The disease is part of the bait. Some of the imagery in this book is very creepy and strong. However, be prepared as they can also be pretty disturbing. 

The weakest part of this book is probably the characters. Other than Luke, everyone feels pretty flat. Despite this flatness, Al is actually the only human character I liked. Of course, the dog is also endearing, but that's kind of a cop out. What happens to the dog was horribly sad. I almost cried.

I know a lot of people love this book, and I can partially understand why. The scare factor is really high, the writing (when not fat-shaming) is decent, and the story was really engaging. I actually did not guess the ending, so that's cool. I would be willing to read more by this author, especially if he can actually write diverse body types in a way that does not feel demonizing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Bullying, Adult/minor relationship, Confinement, Fatphobia, Incest, Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Death

Minor: Eating disorder

The eating disorder is implied and horribly written. While the character's behavior pattern could be symptoms of Binge Eating Disorder, it's never explicitly said and feels extremely unrealistic. I would be shocked if the author actually researched Binge Eating Disorder much at all.

apolloniablooms's review

dark tense slow-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

2.5

Like a lot of horror/thrillers this book suffers from hitting the peak amount of tenseness a person can feel really early on and then maintaining it instead of giving the reader relief then building tension again.  By the end I was skimming.  Bad guy is bad because of mental illness. Wish it had been a short story.  Would be a good premise for a video game.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Gore, Kidnapping, Medical content, Death, Mental illness, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Animal cruelty, Child death, Confinement, Self harm, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Bullying, Grief, Torture, Stalking, Suicide, Panic attacks/disorders, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Vomit, Terminal illness, Animal death, Physical abuse, Murder, Blood, and Body horror

reaja's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

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

2.0

This book was brutally slow paced for the tension it was trying to build. Copious overlapping and unnecessary plots threads that never really paid off. It spends a good half of the pages in childhood flashbacks. The main character isn't particularly sympathetic despite the massive number of pages dedicated to his trauma. He's just sorta... there. The only sympathetic character in the whole novel is the dog. It still gets a full two stars because the way this author writes in-the-moment horror scenes is really, honestly, scary. I feel like this book needed a really talented editor who wasn't afraid to tell this guy to seriously pare down his manuscript. It should have been a short story or he should have leaned WAY harder into character development on the station. Alice and Clayton were especially flat when they both could have been great characters. Alas, very disappointing, but suitably spooky if you're willing to dump a ton of hours in for a few golden glimmers of damn good horror writing. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Death, Self harm, Violence, Child abuse, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child death, Animal death, and Grief

Minor: Kidnapping, Pedophilia, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Excrement, Incest, Medical content, Physical abuse, and Death of parent

dakotahrey's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-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

This book was one that was hard for me to put down and not read in one sitting. Right from the start, you get hooked into this little story of what you think the book will be about, but instead, almost immediately you're thrown into a story of trauma, body horror, and a confusing mess of a situation. It doesn't help that the entirety of the book takes place 8 miles below land with descriptions of hallways and rooms that make you physically feel tight and uncomfortable as you read. The characters infuriate you and have you questioning your own sanity and understanding along the way. I know I gave some pretty heavy tags, but I just wanted to cover all the bases of what is even mentioned in the book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Gaslighting, Violence, Animal cruelty, Domestic abuse, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Child abuse, Death, Death of parent, Abandonment, Confinement, Gore, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Suicide attempt, Animal death, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicide, and Torture

Moderate: Sexual assault

Minor: Cursing