Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Una cabeza llena de fantasmas by Paul Tremblay

64 reviews

50shadesofrae's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

I have complicated feelings about this one, 95% of which would require spoilers to explain. 
The last third-ish has some issues for me, but overall it was a really fascinating autopsy of the exorcist genre? And the deep voyeuristic horror of it? 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicide, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Emotional abuse, and Alcohol

matcha_cat's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Mental illness, Suicide, Vomit, Death of parent, and Murder

Moderate: Gore, Sexual content, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Homophobia, Excrement, Religious bigotry, and Alcohol

stickypeach's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Vomit, and Death of parent

musicmenagerie's review against another edition

dark 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? It's complicated

3.5

Not as scary as I thought it would be, but thought-provoking. And, the ending really shocked me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Murder

Moderate: Addiction, Body horror, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Suicide attempt, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

smileysam's review against another edition

dark emotional 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? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I want to start off by saying I often see this book described as a super scary and disturbing horror novel (which was initially what brought me to reading it) and it’s not. To me, this novel is moreso sad and gut wrenching than scary. It’s less paranormal possession horror and more real life, mental illness, and family splitting ‘horror’. 

I will say, it felt real. I liked the story being told from an unreliable, naive narrator. It felt plausible, like it could happen to any one of us. I initially didn’t mind the blog entries - I did feel like they pulled me out of the story, but not necessarily in a bad way (not until the third one, anyway). I liked the supposed outsider POV and the foreshadowing we got from them.

I do wish, though, that the poisoning of the family was moreso alluded to than outright told to us in the third blog post. I feel like it could’ve create much more tension if it was brought up in Merry’s descriptions to begin with.

All in all, I would say the first 2 parts of this book were fantastic. Where it began to lose me was part 3. The pacing seemed to change and became too fast. Everything seemed to happen and more or less resolve instantly as it was brought up. I wish the third part could’ve maintained the same atmosphere and pacing and story telling that the other two had. I would say this book is worth a read, though. I did enjoy it, it just was not quite what I was expecting or hoping for. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Vomit, Murder, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

lata's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense slow-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? It's complicated

3.75

Holy shit, that was pretty sad. AND THE END... WHAT?! the start was boring, but the third part of the book compensates that.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Excrement, Death of parent, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

evanaviary'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? Yes

3.5

maybe the real demons were the friends we made along the way

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Child death, Death, Mental illness, and Death of parent

Minor: Suicide attempt

brookey8888's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad medium-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

3.5

I don’t know how I feel about this book. It was interesting and the way it was told was intriguing, but it kind of just made me sad. Also I’m pretty sure this is classified as horror, but there was maybe like one creepy part(that I skipped over because I do not need to read graphic details about a 14 year old masturbating). Honestly it was just depressing to read about these girls and the mental illness and honestly the annoying father(which is kind of the point, but I just didn’t really expect that). I also did not like the ending like it was just so anticlimactic. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Mental illness, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, and Alcohol

erica_reads_things's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

An edge-of-your-seat-cant-put-this-down read diving into the horror tropes of possession and exorcism and highlighting the problematic history of exorcism within the Church. I loved the characters and trajectory of this book. The inserts of the horror blog examining the eventual reality show in the story was so clever. I could not put this book down and I think I'll be thinking of this one for a while. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Body horror, Child death, Gore, Self harm, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, and Death of parent

Minor: Domestic abuse and Forced institutionalization

atthediscotech's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Ending was good until “The twist”. The twist made it less interesting. 3.5 bc the twist was a let down. I would have given it 5 without it 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Mental illness, Misogyny, Self harm, Sexual content, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail