Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

Horrid by Katrina Leno

14 reviews

leexpen's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad 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

3.75

📝 SYNOPSIS:
Struggling with all-consuming rage, Jane North-Robinson feels chilled by more than just the autumn air when she and her mother move to her mother's childhood home, where Jane must dig up her mother's secrets to understand what is happening.
🏚📚🌹🎒🪦👻👩‍👧🎃😭

👍🏻 RECOMMENDATION:
💛 READ IF you've got nothing else, if it works for a reading challenge, etc. 

💬 FAVORITE QUOTES:
• Pg. 201
do books taste like roses?
• Pg. 209-210 (TR: Mental illness, depression)
A flash of the earth with everything destroyed except this house, the last building standing, and Jane within it, trapped inside its walls, not really caring anymore whether she made it out or not.
• Pg. 214 (TR: Mental illness, compulsive behaviors)
She imagined the words dissolving off the paper and sinking into her bloodstream. She imagined her body filled with words. Made up of them. Words instead of blood, words instead of organs.

👓 FORMAT: 
📖

📑 COMMENTS:
•  The main characters are complex and flawed. Jane's friends are heartwarming and supportive.
• Jane is frustrating slow to figure out what happened, leaping to illogical conclusions for the sake of continuing the mystery.
• I mostly agree with the Booklist quote on the back, which reads, "Leno blends Agatha Christie and Shirley Jackson for a narrative that ranges from unsettling to genuinely terrifying." (I did not find the narrative terrifying but otherwise agree.)
• The book starts a little too slow, and it ends a little too quickly, but the middle is well-paced.
• Race is poorly represented. Some of the characters seem like they were originally intended to be POCs but were changed to white or the author used POC aesthetics. The black characters are black only in description of skin tone.

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quercine's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Incredibly unique style and really vivid writing. The setting, atmosphere, and emotions are all very richly detailed, and once things got going I couldn’t stop reading. There are lots of layers to symbolism and metaphors, as well as to the relationships between characters. 

The ending was unexpected and shocking, and left me sort of just staring into the middle distance for a while. I hated it as the conclusion for characters I had grown to love but loved it as a piece of writing.

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llyrian's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

 This was going to be a 4.5 to 4.75 but the ending was really weird and rushed imo, I didn't like it.

It was beautifully written and atmospheric, and when I get goosebumps and a prickle on the back of my neck from a horror story it really means something,
but I saw the plottwist coming very early on, and the ending, like I said, wasn't great. 

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booksofautumn's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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brookey8888's review against another edition

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

3.5

I really enjoyed this. I just wish it was a tad spookier and I didn’t really like the ending it felt rushed. I also wish the rhyme played a bigger part. 

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luinthezu's review against another edition

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dark mysterious 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

3.0


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cabeswaren's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5


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betweentheshelves's review against another edition

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

3.0

All the spooky vibes just in time for Halloween! The structure of the book overall was clever, with different lines of a nursey rhyme for each chapter/section. While I wanted a bit more character development, it definitely worked well for this time of year. Leno is great at writing description, really pulling you into this spooky house. 

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mapscitiesandsongs's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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michleea's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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