Reviews tagging 'Stalking'

The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

39 reviews

gracescanlon's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense slow-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Animal death, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Medical content, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Drug abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Fire/Fire injury, and War

pinkupengu's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Toxic relationship, Vomit, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Torture

eclloyd's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Blood, Grief, Stalking, Murder, and Alcohol

brittaanson's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.0

I wanted to love this book, and the beginning really sucked me in with the mystery. The structure is ambitious and intriguing, but by the end, I was confused and unsatisfied. Partly due to the nature of the plot, there wasn’t any deep character development, and as the truth of what was going on was revealed, I disliked the story more and more. The ending has so many twists that didn’t feel completely earned, and by that point I didn’t care about any of the characters. The rules, ethics, and motivations of those driving the story remain ill-defined to me. I didn’t enjoy the violence and aggressive fat phobia in the book. However, I will concede that the cleverness of the overall concept may be enough for someone else to find more satisfaction in this read than I did. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Alcoholism, Body horror, Body shaming, Death, Drug abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Physical abuse, Suicide, Torture, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Self harm

Minor: Rape and Stalking

wickedgrumpy's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.5

To relate it to a movie mash up, take Being John Malkovich and pair it with Knives Out with a dash of unexplained world building sci-fi time loop situation. 

Premise was quite good, but the execution suffered.  It dragged in the middle and the wrap up at the end wasn’t very satisfying because it left so many questions unanswered.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Dysphoria, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

heini's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Fatphobia, Death of parent, and Alcohol

Moderate: Infidelity, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Blood

Minor: Animal death, Drug use, Torture, Stalking, and Fire/Fire injury

nikimorr's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious sad tense 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

4.5

What a wild ride! This book hooked me from the start with a man waking up without a single memory except one name. That very first character is by far my favorite as it becomes immediately apparent how creative this book’s concept is and you really have no idea what’s to come. After that, the same “person” lives in 8 different characters reliving the same day from different bodies/perspectives to solve the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle, and we don’t know why until the very end. 

The setting is just as creative and incredible as the character concept - Blackheath House, a mansion crumbling to the ground. A party with the exact same guests as those 19 years prior - when the hosts’ son was murdered during the party. We never quite know when or where in the world this party all takes place, leaving it all up to the imagination. Totally original and unique!

 By the end, admittedly, it can feel difficult to keep all the details straight; however, the author is kind enough to add extra reminders throughout about who someone is or a detail I’d forgotten. With the last few perspectives, it is almost impossible to completely keep up with every detail, but you realize it does not matter - it’ll all come together, and the author is intentionally keeping you, the reader, in the dark for the big finale. 

I was definitely cheering for our main character to solve it all by the end. One thing remains clear - he is a good person. But was he always a good person? 

SPOILERS AHEAD - My favorite part about the ending is not learning exactly what happened to Evelyn Hardcastle as it is learning why Aiden and Anna are there. What a concept for a PRISON! And for Aiden, it really is a prison, and you feel it with him throughout the book. Learning that Anna, who Aiden comes to love and trust is truly his enemy, is a true thinking moment for the reader. Can people change? Are some people worth saving even after committing horrible crimes? What really is our true nature? One thing that stuck with me is that Aiden finally succeeded in solving the mystery when he truly was a kind and good person throughout - maybe the good guys do win in the end. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Murder, and Classism

Moderate: Animal death, Violence, Blood, Stalking, and Alcohol

jaysaysnope's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense 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

A lot of this books seems opaque for opacity’s sake. It was extremely puzzling, more of an out-and-out mystery than I was expecting, and I actually ended the book with more questions about how this world works. It was well-written and the suspense was compelling, but the author’s ending left me wanting.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Stalking, Suicide attempt, and Murder

Minor: Rape

breadbummer's review against another edition

adventurous 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? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

On the whole, it's an interesting premise. What if someone took your run-of-the-mill Victorian murder mystery but twisted it a little to make it so the same person was living the same day over and over again in other people's bodies? In my case, as someone who's always found sleuth stories about rich people getting murdered at fancy parties to be cheesy and repetitive, I found this story to be...well, cheesy and repetitive. Not repetitive in itself, but it uses the types of characters and themes typically found in this genre.

As far as content goes, whenever a cis man writes a book like this with not a few female characters in it, I expect a "she breasted boobily down the stairs" moment to show itself before too terribly long or at least for pretty much all the women to fall for the central male character (no matter how strongly they're written) but, to my pleasant surprise, I don't ever actually remember this happening. HOWEVER!!! If you're particularly sensitive to fatphobia, don't bother even touching this book, much less opening it up. The rather long section in which the main character goes through the day as Ravencourt is punctuated pretty much every sentence or two with disgust of the host's body. It got to be so uncomfortable that I almost dropped the book entirely if it weren't for the fact that I was behind on my reading goal.

I just finished it like half an hour ago, so my take on the ending might still need some time to cook, but I think I enjoyed it. I certainly got got about who the culprit ended up being (which took me some time to appreciate more), and I thought the idea of this whole scenario of Blackheath being kind of like

the episode "White Christmas" from Black Mirror absolutely fascinating to say the least (still wondering if the events at the mansion actually happened earlier on in the timeline and that the plague doctors gained control of it or if absolutely everything was conjured up by them).

I was originally gonna go with a rating of 3.25, but these final twists bumped it up a bit.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Child death, Death, Fatphobia, Suicide, Stalking, Murder, and Classism

Moderate: Confinement, Gun violence, Self harm, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal death, Body horror, Drug use, Rape, Sexual assault, Blood, and Car accident

redefiningrachel's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

1.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gun violence, Sexual violence, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Drug use, Gore, Misogyny, and Grief