Reviews tagging 'Blood'

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

29 reviews

kly227's review

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

3.0

This book was extremely fascinating in the beginning. The premise is promising but it does not follow all the way through. 
I found myself emotional many times during this book. It put me in a dark headspace going to bed each night, which was hard. I felt connected to the characters because the family set up is exactly like mine as a child- and I would have been Susie. I found myself empathizing so much for Susie and her family in the first half; I found this book to be a very real and very difficult demonstration of grief.
On the negative side… the characters were extremely flat and hardly had any purpose for the story. The development of the plot was strange- as I kept hoping it would go a certain way or that there was a reason I was learning something specific about a character, and it never came back. This was frustrating and made a lot of the random paragraphs of detail throughout the book literally pointless. 

The end of this book was really rocky. There was a paranormal, tricky sex scene that was basically sexual assault (but is glorified to be this amazing, transcendent experience between a 14 y/o and a 20 y/o) that made me extremely uncomfortable. It did not align with the rest of the story and it ruined some characters for me. Loose ends with characters were never tied up or dealt with in any shape or form. Characters were never held accountable for their mistakes and nothing was ever reprimanded.
Finally, maybe this is a personal thing, but I was not happy that the lovely bones were never found. That was my desire the entire time, and maybe it’s more realistic that we lose the body of the person forever but darn it! There are still so many questions. 

Going to watch the very low-rated movie now, wish me luck!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Murder, Blood, Grief, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Alcohol, Child death, Animal death, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Sexual violence, and Violence

tigerkind's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

people being human. loved it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Blood, Violence, Child abuse, Child death, Rape, Grief, Infidelity, Sexual violence, Stalking, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Murder, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Death

Moderate: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal death, Adult/minor relationship, and Animal cruelty

Minor: Domestic abuse, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Kidnapping, Eating disorder, and Drug use

patydenisse's review

dark sad medium-paced

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

2.0

You think you’ll love the book, but then you keep reading and ask yourself why is this or that on the book, the it gets sooo bad. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Pregnancy, Pedophilia, Murder, Lesbophobia, Blood, Sexual content, Death, Addiction, Racism, Sexual violence, Rape, Kidnapping, Infidelity, Grief, Drug use, Child death, Child abuse, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, and Adult/minor relationship

It is not for kids, I would even say teens, there’s explicit sexual content

kryolitee's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional slow-paced

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

2.0

I don’t quite know what to say about this book. It was okay, but I didn’t like the writing style. It had me hooked for the first and the last few chapters but I couldn’t tell you what happened in between. In the middle of this book it kind of started to drag, nothing was really happening and I had to force myself to continue reading. 
Overall I would say that this book wasn’t good but it also wasn’t bad. 2 stars. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Grief, Rape, Animal cruelty, Murder, and Pedophilia

Moderate: Alcoholism, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Medical content, Stalking, Body horror, and Kidnapping

sarahsbookss's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-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? No

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Violence, Blood, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual harassment, Stalking, Rape, Sexual violence, Grief, Murder, Pedophilia, Sexual content, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Pregnancy, Sexual assault, Infidelity, and Kidnapping

rainbowpridepin's review

dark emotional reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Murder, Pedophilia, Grief, Child death, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Blood, and Death

Moderate: Sexual content, Animal cruelty, and Animal death

Minor: Racism

loggskywalker's review

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Super sad idea but great execution!! Makes you think about loved ones who have passed away! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Murder, Death, Rape, Sexual assault, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Child death, and Pedophilia

juleskr02's review

dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-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

2.25

i wanted to love this book. i really did. however beautiful the beginning and end were, what filled the middle section of the novel moved at such an odd pace i found myself often bored and uninterested. alice sebold is able to connect heaven and earth in such a unique fashion, which is fun to read about. however, i wasn’t a fan of her vernacular and use of run-on sentences, as they left me often confused.

i have always loved the movie, but this is one book where i enjoyed the movie adaptation a lot better than the novel. i think the murder was so well written, but it happened so quickly, that everything that came after it had so much unmet potential in terms of entertaining writing. 

i will say though the middle chunks of the book were quite dull, i enjoyed experiencing ruth’s and ray’s relationship and their conversations about susie, as well as the family dynamic after losing a member. there were many highlights but not enough to save the overall enjoyment of this novel. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Pedophilia, and Child death

Moderate: Blood, Death, Gore, and Grief

Minor: Sexual assault and Rape

witchleaves's review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Disappointed by Harvey's end, he deserved worse

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Death, Rape, Stalking, Violence, Child death, Grief, Sexual violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Pedophilia

Moderate: Body shaming, Abandonment, Blood, and Murder

Minor: Cursing

quinn24's review

dark emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child death, Death, Murder, Rape, Sexual assault, and Grief

Moderate: Sexual content

Minor: Animal death and Death of parent