Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

98 reviews

azurae's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

1.5

While I have mixed feelings about this book, I overall really didn't enjoy it. The violence was overdone to the point of being gratuitous, the story didn't flow well, alternating between painfully slow and dropping large storyline bombs quickly, and so many loose ends left unexplored. Many of the characters are never developed at all, for example

Nearly half the librarians were barely mentioned, the enemies were nebulous and barely any info is given on them, many of the mysteries brought up left unexplained etc

The "oh father was the hero all along and had to horrifically torture these kids to make a god, and planned everything out behind the scenes, meaning Carolyn was just a pawn plodding to her destiny" ending was really unsatisfying. The sexual assault scenes were unnecessary and horrible to read, the story would've been better without them. The author himself in interviews has said that he debated heavily with himself on whether to include them, and I feel he made the wrong call. 
However, the writing was really gripping, the library concept was executed well, and I did enjoy some aspects of this book. Dresden & Naga were my favorite characters and the whole lion arc was meaningful and engrossing, albeit sad. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Excrement, and Alcohol

pansypantaloons's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide, Torture, Blood, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Suicide

Minor: Sexual assault and Death of parent

meg_elyse's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Confinement, Drug use, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Torture, Excrement, Vomit, Death of parent, and War

ceridwyn's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective tense fast-paced

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

3.75

This is a well written page Turner. Bleak, full of horror and too nihilistic for me to enjoy.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

fletcher's review against another edition

4.0

This is an odd one for me. I thought it was almost entirely amazing. I liked almost all of the characters, thought the plot and the library were interesting, the writing was snappy and funny in places, and I even grew to like the way the last third or so was so different from the first part of the book.

Unfortunately, there were just a lot of things about Carolyn that rubbed me the wrong way. The least of those is that she was pretty much a manic pixie dream girl but to literally godlike proportions. That wouldn't bother me so much, but I was really grated by the way the author treated her

rape

and especially the fact that

her father's entire conceit revolved around purposely creating a person who would do something that to Carolyn--and then he apologized to HIM and not HER after it was all over.

That crossed a line for me personally. Thus... I feel pretty conflicted about the whole thing :') 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape and Injury/Injury detail

4jakers18's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious 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: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Incest, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Medical trauma, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, War, and Injury/Injury detail

lanid's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious tense

• 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Drug use and Excrement

bookish_bry's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.75

This book is pretty weird and dark, but overall pretty good. I was able to predict it most of the time, but I don't think the author was really trying to hide anything. The ending was a little eh to me. The climax was very good in my opinion, but it dropped off in a weird way.

I really enjoyed the choice of having a narrator that was intentionally hiding her thoughts from the reader for an in universe reason. That was very fun.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Drug use, and Alcohol

Minor: Cancer and Car accident

This story is very dark. A character is burnt to death in some detail. A resurrection is done which involves a character putting their mouth on a corpse magots and all.

chrisljm's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

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

2.5

This was a well written story, but it’s not something I enjoyed. The vibes were just so terrible, I wanted to throw up a few times. It was as if Scott Hawkins heard the phrase “until the room stinks” and wanted to literally infuse that into the very core of the book. 

The best part of the book, for me, was the resolution to the mystery of what happened to Father. It seemed like a great conclusion, only to find out I still had ~150 pages left. I know part of the premise is Carolyn finding her humanity again, but since that arch is set after the climax of finding out about Father, the juxtaposition in tone of these two parts seemed very strange to me and made me enjoy the last quarter a lot less. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Rape, Sexual content, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Bullying, Drug abuse, Death of parent, and Alcohol

Minor: Cancer, Slavery, and Car accident

dananator13's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious fast-paced

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Blood, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail