Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

The Dinner by Herman Koch

37 reviews

afabbi's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

The writing is great, the story is interesting and told from an interesting perspective, but the characters are bad people who don't have any development throughout the story

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Classism, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Mental illness, and Violence

Minor: Blood, Chronic illness, and Child death

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

5.0

like father like son

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Violence

missgrangerr's review against another edition

Beyond boring!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, and Fire/Fire injury

corinth113's review

challenging dark funny mysterious tense 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? Yes

4.5

Holy…wow. Just finished it, and I feel…bad. Great writing, great tension and suspense building, and really well done but holy cow.

All vibes. 

Bad ones, but done in a very well crafted way with slow, disturbing builds, and a dull, slightly sickening atmosphere. You almost don’t notice at first, and then there’s one reference to a film that makes you go “wait” and then it just gets worse from there (in a good way??)

Not really disturbing in the “trigger warning” sense, in case anyone’s wondering. Anyway, great writing as you get to be in this guy’s head for an evening at dinner with brother and their wives. I’m rambling, but it’s because I’m so quietly shook. Read it! Enjoy it…it’ll probably make you feel as satiated and as flabbergasted and as guilty as an overly expensive dinner would with the brother you obviously can’t stand at a place where the portions are way too small to begin with.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Bullying, Fire/Fire injury, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Rape

hannahpeterson's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Violence, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, and Murder

Moderate: Medical content

Minor: Pregnancy and Abortion

h4ppycupcake's review against another edition

dark 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? It's complicated

3.0

This read like a Dutch take on American Psycho. Not for the faint hearted. I didn’t find any of the characters particularly interesting and I didn’t end up feeling satisfied with how the story concluded. There was some interesting commentary regarding how society judges who can be considered an “innocent victim,” but it was not a pleasant character revelation. Truth be told, there were no pleasant parts of this book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Classism, Death, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Fire/Fire injury, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Gore, Torture, Body horror, Toxic relationship, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Alcohol and Cursing

sphinxofblackquartz's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Racism and Car accident

Minor: Classism, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, Abortion, Mental illness, and Alcohol

sgtz00's review against another edition

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Murder

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Classism

elisalasater's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad tense 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? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Violence, Hate crime, and Classism

Moderate: Mental illness

Minor: Abortion and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

floorvm's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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? Yes

4.0

Koch zn karakters vriend…. Hoe ze zo er van overtuigd zijn normaal te zijn, terwijl je langzamerhand gekke dingen begint op te merken… Sleept je helemaal mee. Ik had dit boek zo uit. Je zou wel kunnen zeggen dat dit een bijzondere familie is.
Ik had gehoopt dat de gerechten interessant zouden zijn vanwege het dure restaurant maar dat waren ze niet. Dat is niet Koch zn fout,  ik wilde het gewoon even zeggen.
Beetje jammer van t n-woord maar zou ook de bedoeling kunnen zijn(?)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Racial slurs