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selkelite's reviews
385 reviews
Hurdy Gurdy by Christopher Wilson
dark
funny
informative
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Unsurprising to anyone that I would love this book, which caters to my particular interests exactly. But I did love it. It really slapped. I will be reading this author’s other books asap.
Marketed as a comedy but it’s really literary fiction with a dark comedic edge to it. Don’t go in expecting laugh out loud comedy! It’s not meant to be that.
Marketed as a comedy but it’s really literary fiction with a dark comedic edge to it. Don’t go in expecting laugh out loud comedy! It’s not meant to be that.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Medical trauma, Grief, Terminal illness, Vomit, Medical content, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic, Death, and Blood
Moderate: Sexual content
The Last One by Will Dean
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-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
3.0
A very weird, fantastically deranged little thriller to get you out of a reading slump. Do not come into this expecting even the slightest connection to real world logic, but it’s great fun. Lots of twists and turns.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction and Gaslighting
Moderate: Drug use, Suicide, Death of parent, and Gore
The Fiends in the Furrows III: Final Harvest by Christine M. Scott, David T. Neal
dark
slow-paced
3.5
The Green Man of Eshwood Hall by Jacob Kerr
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Enjoyable, eerie and nasty, but like many horror novels it trailed off a bit in power the more the author felt pressure to bring it to a spooky end.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Animal death, Child death, Animal cruelty, and Emotional abuse
Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide and Death of parent
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Violence, and Child abuse
Sundial by Catriona Ward
dark
mysterious
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? Yes
3.25
A good fun read, somewhat marred by the comparison to Needless Street, Catriona’s previous and far better outing.
Having read a couple of her other novels, it’s interesting to note just how obsessed she is with siblings, especially siblings who swap places in the plot and hide deep dark secrets about their relationship with each other. I’m not sure the ‘twists’ here were entirely successful — but I did feel the characters strongly as whole people, which is impressive when the plot is quite so outlandish as it is here.
Side note: this book needs an enormous trigger warning for animal cruelty and animal death.
Having read a couple of her other novels, it’s interesting to note just how obsessed she is with siblings, especially siblings who swap places in the plot and hide deep dark secrets about their relationship with each other. I’m not sure the ‘twists’ here were entirely successful — but I did feel the characters strongly as whole people, which is impressive when the plot is quite so outlandish as it is here.
Side note: this book needs an enormous trigger warning for animal cruelty and animal death.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Animal death, Animal cruelty, and Domestic abuse