Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Episode Thirteen by Craig DiLouie

9 reviews

enchantressreads's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Murder, Violence, and Blood

angie11290's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Grief, Racism, Xenophobia, Death, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Self harm, Sexism, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Vomit, Violence, Gun violence, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Dysphoria, Toxic friendship, and Blood

sky_maris's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cursing, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Child abuse, Gun violence, Murder, Vomit, Domestic abuse, Alcohol, Death of parent, Grief, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Self harm, and Violence

kyrstin_p1989's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-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? It's complicated

4.5

Very creepy. Very weird. This would be a good movie or TV series. I liked the way it was written as a series of journal entries, film footage transcripts, interviews, and text message threads from the various perspectives of the characters. That and the creepy plot line made the reading fly by. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Confinement, Gore, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Death, Drug use, Bullying, Abandonment, Domestic abuse, Mental illness, and Suicidal thoughts

shadowspinner'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? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Violence

Moderate: Murder and Gun violence

Minor: Self harm, Death of parent, and Alcoholism

blacksphinx's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

As a lover of horror and the epistolary format, this book was a highly anticipated release for me. While it turned out to be a fun ride and would make a GREAT movie, it stumbled a bit at a basic level that constantly nagged at me. See, the two hardest aspects of the epistolary format are "does this sound like an authentic record a person would make?" and "does it make sense that this information is being recorded in this situation?" 

A large portion of this book is journal entries. The reasoning behind having the characters journal (excerpts would be pulled from them for blog posts to promote upcoming episodes of the TV show) is great. But, often these "journal entries" felt like regular first-person narration, of the kind that constantly pinged my brain as "someone is making stuff up in a reddit post." (who the hell is out here writing down conversations word-for-word with quotation marks hours after the event??) While these entries bothered me, there are other aspects that truly shined - I loved the text messages between Jessica and her sister in particular.

The closer we get to the end of the novel, the more it cracked my suspension of disbelief that people in threatening, possibly lethal, situations with a ticking clock would stop every couple of feet and write about their feelings. It's okay for there to be gaps the audience gets to puzzle over! I promise! 

Overall, it is still an entertaining book and a solid B horror movie, but it didn't set the genre on fire or anything. I will be checking out the author's back catalog in the future. If you are looking for more epistolary horror, may I recommend the short story collection Among the Lilies by Daniel Mills? 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Death, Murder, Vomit, Domestic abuse, Violence, and Police brutality

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Confinement, Self harm, Excrement, and Physical abuse

Minor: Death of parent, Cannibalism, Racism, Alcoholism, and Injury/Injury detail

j_squaredd's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Child abuse, and Violence

Moderate: Vomit and Gore

gingermouse's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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? It's complicated

2.5

I really didn't like the style this was written in, large parts of it read like a screen play (because it's supposed to be a TV show i guess). Characters actions are almost stage directions. This makes reading disjointed and pulled me out of the story a lot. I read this in one day because I was on a plane, otherwise I likely would have DNF'd. The mystery isn't even enough to have kept me reading under any other circumstances. The last two chapters are completely unnecessary and the conclusion isn't satisfying. I probably wouldnt have classed this as horror even. Not a completely terrible book but not redeemable for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Forced institutionalization, Excrement, Violence, Death, Torture, and Confinement

Minor: Suicide

Descriptions of psychological torture. Milgram experiment-esque.

katkinslee's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I'm a sucker for found footage stuff so I really enjoyed this book!
Don't go into this expecting it to end all nicely wrapped up because if anything I finished this book with more questions than answers. 
The characters all kind of suck and I'd also say I didn't really enjoy how the author wrote his females. 
It was definitely creepy in parts but I wish there was more haunted house stuff and less cosmic horror.
If you like a mixed media style book you might enjoy this one, I have heard good things about the audiobook.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Murder, Gun violence, Violence, Death, and Vomit