Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Where the Dead Wait by Ally Wilkes

2 reviews

jan_coco_day's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

I usually get frustrated when secondary characters seem to "vanish" or stop existing when they are not in the scene/on the page. But Wilkes uses this effectively to lay bare Day's obsession with his own loneliness.

The one character who isn't present haunts Day so much that he is "realer" than any of the other characters on the voyage with Day. Much of his isolation is self-imposed.

The story falls apart a little bit at the end at the reveal that there is no larger supernatural horror, but just one psychopath Stevens and his psychopath friends. And they were all pretty easily defeated.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gore, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Cannibalism, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Colonisation, and Classism

apairofducks's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This book is absolutely fantastic. I had high hopes after All the White Spaces, and Ally Wilkes more than delivered. The characters were fantastic, the conflicts ached, and the Arctic setting chilled me to the bone despite reading this book in a sweltering July. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Toxic relationship, Cannibalism, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Slavery and Medical content

Minor: Animal death