Reviews with content warning for Self harm - The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

Reviews tagging 'Self harm'

The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

49 reviews

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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breadbummer's review against another edition

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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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jenbertface's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.75

This book was every bit as mysterious, spooky, and crazy as I hoped it would be. The best part was getting to read it along with @stankmcdanken which made it so much more fun and enjoyable. The writing in this book was so detailed and descriptive, by far the most well written book I’ve read in a long time. The only thing that keeps me from giving it 5 stars is that I feel like the ending goes by too quickly after working for answers across 400 pages.

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shree's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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bookhoarder2022's review against another edition

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adventurous dark hopeful mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.25

Decent mystery & interesting premise, but the way the narrator speaks with such disgust about his hosts was a huge turn-off

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starlitpage's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious fast-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? It's complicated

4.75

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strawberrytheauthor's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Honestly the beginning of the book is kind of slow and frustrating because you know nothing just as Aiden Bishop (the main character) knows nothing. He doesn’t even know his name. It picks up though and then it is a crazy ride.

I tried making multiple guesses about the things that were going to happen in the book but I was often wrong. There were a lot of twists and turns and I definitely did not see the final twist coming.

When I started reading I thought it would be a four star book at most but it really delivered. When I got to the final day I was worried that all the plot holes would remain holes, but Turton made sure that everything got wrapped up in a neat, tidy bow.

I loved this book and would read it again.

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