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Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'
The Girl in the Locked Room: A Ghost Story by Mary Downing Hahn
4 reviews
hopeful
mysterious
relaxing
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Abandonment
Moderate: Body horror, Violence, Death of parent, Murder, Colonisation
Minor: Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Blood, Grief, Alcohol, Dysphoria, Classism
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Loveable characters:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Death of parent
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I picked it up from the library free bin. I don't necessarily regret reading it all the way through, but the quote below tanked my opinion of this book and author.
"the world must have changed a great deal since the girl last saw it. Maybe boys wear skirts and play with dolls now. Maybe children take their grandparents for rides in baby buggies. How silly. She giggled at the very idea." (58)
It's embedded in a section about the ghost character's opinion on the modern people's weird clothes, but that addition is pointed, even if I give the author the benefit of the doubt that it could be an unconscious bias, especially in a book published in 2018.
It feels like an insane critique for me to make of an award winning children's author, but she's kind of bad at writing children. This book is deeply disjointed and the kids are so formal. They don't really talk like children. The plot isn't particularly well-explained either, but I read it in one day and it read like something I would have bodied and then forgot about in early middle school.
"the world must have changed a great deal since the girl last saw it. Maybe boys wear skirts and play with dolls now. Maybe children take their grandparents for rides in baby buggies. How silly. She giggled at the very idea." (58)
It's embedded in a section about the ghost character's opinion on the modern people's weird clothes, but that addition is pointed, even if I give the author the benefit of the doubt that it could be an unconscious bias, especially in a book published in 2018.
It feels like an insane critique for me to make of an award winning children's author, but she's kind of bad at writing children. This book is deeply disjointed and the kids are so formal. They don't really talk like children. The plot isn't particularly well-explained either, but I read it in one day and it read like something I would have bodied and then forgot about in early middle school.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence
Moderate: Child death, Death, Physical abuse, Blood, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Transphobia
adventurous
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death
Moderate: Gun violence, Violence, Classism
Minor: Domestic abuse, Physical abuse