Reviews tagging 'Gaslighting'

House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig

53 reviews

sinaprst's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

THE VIBESSSSS.....I CAN'T 

also the birth scene was so disturbing, i nearly threw up

recommended reading ambience: https://youtu.be/LJqVftwOIDc?si=bUpnVHgr70JxgERQ

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Body horror, Blood, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Fire/Fire injury, Animal death, Suicide, and Vomit

mypatronusisajedi's review

dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Murder, Death, Pregnancy, and Gaslighting

tays_books's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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? No

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Blood, Death, Gaslighting, Pregnancy, Mental illness, Grief, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence

Moderate: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Suicide, Injury/Injury detail, Fire/Fire injury, Animal death, Death of parent, Self harm, and Miscarriage

Minor: Domestic abuse, Vomit, Rape, Infidelity, Sexual content, and Adult/minor relationship

stephanieluxton's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

I don't read a lot of YA but this is definitely a good one! The gothic, haunting atmosphere of a castle by the cliffside of an island was *chefs kiss*. This book is equal parts fantasy and mystery, but slides towards horror as the story progresses.

Annaleigh was one of 12 princesses living on the island, but after the unfortunate accidental deaths of a few of her older sisters, and her mother, the townspeople believe her family to be cursed. Annaleigh believes the most recent death was a murder rather than a suicide and begins trying to unravel the mystery, with some help from her childhood crush and a handsome stranger she meets in the market. The plot thickens when the sisters go searching for a portal used by the Gods to travel to other regions in hopes of finding love with people who are unfamiliar with the curse. Annaleigh struggles to unravel the mystery of what's happening. Is there really a curse? Who can she trust? Wtf is going on? Also, there's ghosts.

The world-building was well done in this book. We learn about their religion and customs organically without a ton of exposition. It's definitely a world you can get lost in. The only thing that makes this book YA is the lack of smut, which feels authentic to the time period where marriage came first. One thing that wasn't old-timey was the fashion for the balls that the princesses attend. Everything is described in a beautifully cinematic way. As the book slips further into horror, the descriptions are grotesque and you genuinely feel scared for our characters who we've grown to care about.

I'd recommend this book to people who like gothic, ghostly, psychological horror and don't need smut to enjoy themselves.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Grief, Gore, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Classism, Suicide, Child death, Pregnancy, Blood, Death, Mental illness, Self harm, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Death of parent

This book is more psychological that violent and we generally see the aftermath of violence more than we see violence. There's a few scenes that feel like nightmare sequences that are a bit more intense. The horror sequences were pretty epic for a YA book, but it's definitely not splatterpunk or anything.

komaedacoffee's review

adventurous dark sad 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? No

2.25

Pregnancy, dance partys, lot of death, no thank you.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Pregnancy and Child death

Minor: Death of parent, Infertility, Animal death, Mental illness, Abortion, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Animal cruelty, Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, Adult/minor relationship, Gaslighting, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt

cerilouisereads's review

adventurous emotional mysterious fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Death, Child death, Death of parent, Grief, Pregnancy, Murder, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Sexism, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

eve_reads's review against another edition

adventurous 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? It's complicated

3.25

⁕ The dark fantasy elements of this novel were top notch and surprisingly intense for a YA novel. Craig does not shy away from the more sickening details of death, rot, and ghosts, even though the main characters through which we experience these things are literal children.

⁕ The slow burn romance honestly made me feel stupid giddy. I read this book months ago and I still remember the toe-tingling delight I felt when *the kiss* FINALLY happened. 

⁕  I didn't very much care for the characters as individuals (I felt that they were one-dimensional and stereotypical), but I loved their relationships and arguments as siblings. The jealousy and love between them were very well-written.

⁕ SPOILER: Portions of the plot felt haphazardly thrown together. We spend the entirety of the book trying to solve which friend or family member killed Annaleigh's sisters, only to find that it was largely the work of an evil demon that we didn't even know existed until the last few chapters? Also, the main love interest has magical powers and is related to royalty but doesn't use these attributes to help solve the mystery? Okay....

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Child death, Gore, Suicide, Pregnancy, Body horror, Gaslighting, and Murder

Moderate: Death of parent

clarabooksit's review against another edition

While I enjoyed the mystery and horror elements, the constant insertion of romance really took me out of the story and the romances themselves were super cringey. This wasn’t for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Grief

Moderate: Body horror, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Gaslighting, Murder, and Child death

piperclover's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional 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

2.75

The trigger warnings on this one are long.

I'm not sure how to rate this.  This book is not for me. I am not the demographic that should be reading this and I wish I knew that going into the book but unfortunately I didn't realize that until over 35% of the way through. Its definitely creepy, grotesque, and spooky alright. The last 25% really unravels and picks up speed but the first 75% are not boring by any means. 

 There's quite a few things that bothered me in this but a lot of that was just that this has a lot of genre/tropes I don't like so those gripes are excused by that- like Victorian era sexism.  There are 3 things though that I did dislike regardless. (1) You never really find out how long ago most people died or how old some characters are which left me a little confused at the nature of certain relationships or details of the plot. (2) I also really dislike the resolution/the why this curse is happening. It's such a cheap and trite reason and I'm just so tired of everything boiling down to

jealous woman exacts revenge

.  Here it was so obvious but it wasn't figured out until way too late which was obnoxious. (3) The last thing was that the gods are known to be real beings that exist about the humans until 70% through??? Theres a throw away line in the beginning of the book but its not clear they're real until it feels like a clunky plot device later on. I should know way sooner if gods are more than a religious system. 

 All of that being said, I  did enjoy large portions of this and I enjoyed even some of the horror aspects because I found them entertaining and intriguing. It's just that horror and Victorian era are some of my least favorite genres and mixed with the 3 issues above, I just don't think I can rate it very high. The narrator was amazing though 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Pregnancy, Blood, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Child death, Gaslighting, and Grief

Moderate: Alcohol and Body horror

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Infidelity, and Suicide

graphic depictions of decayed corpses and childbirth

toriwatson's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Grief, Death, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Suicide, Death of parent, Body horror, and Blood