Reviews tagging 'Sexism'

The Overnight Guest by Heather Gudenkauf

2 reviews

ecn's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

Extremely predictable from the start, you know exactly what you’re going to get and what happens as soon as enough if set up. The story is extremely simple but it does scratch a certain itch in the fall/winter. Overall not bad! A good in between read for when you don’t really wanna dive into too much

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Miscarriage, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Sexism, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Medical trauma, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

stephanieluxton's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-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? No

4.5

This story is split into three timelines: The summer of 2000 when a violent crime was committed at the farmhouse, an unknown time in which a mother and young girl are held captive, and present day in which our protagonist, Wylie, a true crime writer who is staying at the farmhouse to finish writing her book is being snowed in and finds a little boy freezing to death outside.

At times, this story feels like three books in one as each storyline slowly unfolds and we try to make predictions and decipher how they're connected. The characters are interesting and it's fun trying to predict their motivations.

The setting adds a lot of atmosphere to the story, especially in the present day/winter scenes. The cold, dark, white out conditions add so much claustrophobia. There were a few scenes in which I was genuinely terrified for our main characters.

My favorite thing about this book was seeing how the different characters reacted to the situations they found themselves in. It felt believable.
One of my least favourite things was the end reveal - the reveal itself was fine, but I think it would have been more impactful if the motivations of the antagonist were a little more defined.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who enjoys slow burn crime/thrillers and dark "whodunnits". 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Miscarriage, Toxic relationship, Blood, Death of parent, and Murder

Moderate: Alcoholism, Confinement, Death, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Car accident, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Cursing, Pedophilia, Vomit, Abortion, and Fire/Fire injury