Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig

37 reviews

mizzy406's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Alcohol, Death of parent, War, and Vomit

sappix's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore and Murder

Minor: Suicide, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, and Emotional abuse

Childbirth should be on the list.

alyvia_jeane's review

dark mysterious sad fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Miscarriage, and Child death

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Suicide, Blood, Murder, Animal death, Grief, and Pregnancy

It kept me guessing and wanting more. I was just as confused as the main character and that is hard to do. Didn’t guess the end but omg that was crazy!! Loved the atmosphere and imagery. Verity is my new baby and poor fisher/Hanna! Is that a spoiler? Nah. Was worried I wouldn’t like this but definitely wrong. Not a 5 star bc there was a little thing that happened that I didn’t like. But otherwise great.

spookysierra's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Holy Sh*t. Holy Sh*t. Holy Sh*t.

Look. I don't typically write reviews unless a book is amazing or truly terrible. 

This book is fantastic.

Going in, I knew it was going to be a retelling of the 12 Dancing Princesses, but I wasn't sure how closely it was going to follow the fairytale. I also didn't realize this book was going to be a spooky murder mystery. Because I went into this not realizing the full scope of the book's premise, the beginning was kind of slow for me; HOWEVER, as soon as I started to realize there was more to this than just a group of girls wandering off into the forest to dance the night away, with dashing young men I. WAS. IN.

My assessment of the book went from a 3 to a 4 immediately and before I was 75% through the book, I could just feel that I was going to rate this 5 stars 

This book had me mistrusting EVERY. SINGLE. CHARACTER. I would go back and forth on some, I would second guess everything everyone was saying. This book is masterful.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Murder, Medical trauma, Child death, Pregnancy, Miscarriage, Mental illness, Death of parent, Vomit, Injury/Injury detail, Alcoholism, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Alcohol, Death, Body horror, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Suicide and Terminal illness

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

carrasreadsandthings's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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

5.0

This was an amazing book! I loved every chapter and couldn't put it down. It was so unpredictable! I highly recommend 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Grief, Vomit, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, and Child death

Moderate: Alcohol, Classism, and Fire/Fire injury

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

mysterymom40'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? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Blood, Gore, and Body horror

Moderate: Sexual content, Murder, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, Death, Sexual harassment, Grief, Emotional abuse, Animal cruelty, Alcohol, Medical content, and Gaslighting

Minor: Misogyny

character talks about using sex to get a wish fulfilled; very gory birth scene; scary dreams; scenes with characters in distorted body forms

slvt4b00ks's review

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-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

5.0

This book was such a treat. I have never really read anything tho close to horror. Definitely do not read at night if you’re prone to nightmares or scare easily. I love how many allusions there are to Edgar Alan Poe. There’s even a character named Edgar. This author has certainly mastered the macabre, I think mr. Poe himself would have loved this story. The ending had so many twists and turns, I was concerned that like our main character, I could not separate nightmare from reality. Please please please read this. I have no regrets other than that I wish I read this sooner. The book had been sitting on my shelf for a full YEAR, untouched. I almost feel as though the cover does not do it Justice.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Stalking, Injury/Injury detail, Infidelity, Grief, Death, Body horror, Suicide, Pregnancy, Medical content, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Miscarriage, Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, Classism, Blood, Animal death, Alcohol, Murder, Mental illness, Medical trauma, Gore, Chronic illness, and Child death

offbrandclubsoda's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

2.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Miscarriage, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Gore, and Death of parent

Minor: Vomit, Alcohol, and Suicide