Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

63 reviews

bone_empress's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism

Moderate: Bullying, Classism, Emotional abuse, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide

Minor: Cultural appropriation and Incest

Ableism: there's an adult character that may have a developmental disability. People talk down to him and use disparaging words to describe him, and he is portrayed as being unintelligent. It's also heavily implied that he may have also been emotionally abused in the past and threatened with being institutionalized. The character is not present for most of the book. Bullying and emotional abuse: one character is intentionally hurtful to the narrator, playing upon the narrator's fears and insecurities. The narrator's husband stonewalls her sometimes and the narrator is impacted negatively. Cultural appropriation: Characters dress up in appropriated attire at an event. One is in brown face. Incest: a secondary character had a consensual relationship with a non-immediate family member in the past. Not described in detail. Suicide: a character is theorized to have successfully ended their life and the method is generally described but does not give violent details. Suicidal thoughts (very mild spoiler, no names):

a character tries to convince another character to jump out a window from which they would not survive the fall. No attempt is made.

atelopxobia's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense 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? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Terminal illness, Suicidal thoughts, Infidelity, Cancer, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Violence, Incest, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Pregnancy, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Alcoholism, Ableism, and Gaslighting

bethantg's review

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Dysphoria, Infidelity, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Alcohol, Medical content, and Gun violence

Minor: Terminal illness and Cultural appropriation

marie_99's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Murder

reading_under_covers's review against another edition

4.5

This one took me a couple of chapters before I got sucked into it, but wow, what a haunting, clever, gothic story. 

The fact that the MC is never given a name really added to the story and the ending had me 🤯 👀 

Note: There were a couple of problematic scenes, which I guess at the time wouldn’t have come across that way, but were cringe and uncomfortable to read in the modern day.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Cultural appropriation, and Murder

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Infidelity

Minor: Incest

rhi_reading's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-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

4.5

While this classic novel does have some elements that haven’t aged well, the overarching theme of the story has undoubtedly stood the test of time. 
Frequently undersold as a ‘gothic romance’, du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’ is a masterclass in character work, suspense, and atmosphere. The titular character never appears or speaks a word throughout the novel but is so incredibly well written through the accounts of all the supporting characters that she stands out more than any of them. 

The contrast of the headstrong and fiery Rebecca with the diminutive and awkward nameless narrator is one of the highlights of the book and a sharp take on the classic Madonna-Whore complex. Du Maurier manipulates her readers until the very end in to sympathising and hating the characters she wants us to despite their actions and motives,  and asking us to consider what these feelings say about our own morality - after all, the truth doesn’t mean anything against a well crafted story. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Murder, Death, Suicide, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Cancer, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, and Murder

Minor: Cultural appropriation and Racism

sadiaa's review against another edition

4.75

Wish it didn't end the way it did 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Dementia, Infertility, Suicidal thoughts, Cancer, Terminal illness, Incest, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, and Death

calicornmoore's review against another edition

dark 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Cancer, Violence, and Suicide

mishasbooks's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Murder, Alcohol, Cancer, Eating disorder, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Ableism, Death, Death of parent, Violence, War, Gun violence, Incest, Suicide attempt, Chronic illness, Fatphobia, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide

maeverose's review against another edition

slow-paced

3.75

TL;DR: I have mixed feelings. I like the overall story, the atmosphere, I really enjoyed the first third/half, then it got way too slow, repetitive and boring. This review will be very negative despite my overall feelings. I didn’t hate the book at all I just have more to say about the negatives.

This is the most atmospheric book I’ve ever read, but imo it’s to a fault. I like slow atmospheric books, and I really liked the writing in the beginning, but the long drawn out descriptions started to take away from the scene we were in and it got frustrating. It was obvious at times when it was being used to add suspense, drawing out the scene making you wait for a reveal or conversation to happen. Some people might like that, I found it irritating. Narrator’s daydreams were funny and relatable at first, but again, got to be too excessive and were inserted at times that felt unnecessary or inappropriate. I found myself internally screaming at her to go talk to someone rather than sulk and daydream. The book overall is very slow, not much of the plot happens until the last 20%.

This book is so repetitive. Narrator has a lot of similar conversations and social interactions throughout the book. She has similar daydreams (too many daydreams), repeating thoughts, etc. Another annoying thing is something will happen or be said, and then the characters will talk about or explain the thing that we just saw happen. Sometimes multiple different characters will explain the same thing, so we end up reading about that same event or statement two or more times before we move on.. not to mention all the unnecessary
‘ “Yes,” I said. ’s

I hate Maxim. Of course this book isn’t a romance novel, and it was written over 80 years ago so the misogyny is not at all unexpected, but being as they remain a couple by the end it’s irritating to me. He’s so patronizing and misogynistic towards Narrator from the beginning and it only gets worse later on. Frank had much better chemistry with Narrator, I didn’t feel like Maxim actually liked her at all, we hardly even saw them together. And the fact that he was so much older than her but also liked that she was young and innocent grossed me out.

This book is very ableist, specifically towards people with intellectual disabilities.

On a less critical note (though still negative because it’s depressing), I was surprised how much I related to Narrator with her social difficulties. I think the intention was that she was young and wasn’t used to all the social obligations of being a more well known person, but to me it read very similar to social anxiety or maybe even autism/adhd. She also had pretty intense insecurities and didn’t think very highly of herself (rejection sensitivity?), which honestly made me a bit sad while reading because I related to so much of it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Ableism, Cultural appropriation, Death, Dementia, Suicidal thoughts, and Murder

Moderate: Cancer, Pedophilia, Racism, Animal cruelty, Fatphobia, Injury/Injury detail, Incest, Fire/Fire injury, and Lesbophobia

Minor: Sexual content

Ageism. Minor spoilers related to the pedophilia and suicidal thoughts:

Mrs Danvers is queer coded in her feelings towards Rebecca but it’s stated that Mrs Danvers cared for her since Rebecca was a child. They also mention men being attracted to Rebecca when she was a child. Mrs Danvers suicide baits narrator and Narrator almost follows through. You’re in Narrator’s head in that moment.