Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Temporada de Caça by Stephen Graham Jones

94 reviews

sassyykassie's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Racism, Suicide, Blood, Vomit, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

jessthanthree's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Gore, Racism, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, and Colonisation

Moderate: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Racial slurs, Excrement, and Vomit

embee007's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

4.75

"Indian stories always hoop back on themselves like that, don’t they? At least the good ones do."

After a slow start, there was some small sections where I was on the edge of my seat, but the rest of the book was a constant state of dread, with a cloud of foreboding hanging overhead.

"It’s a good day to die. I will fight no more forever."

I frequently couldn't decide if I wanted to read & know what happened next, risking nightmares, & the same decision at the end of the next chapter, or wait until it was morning.

"His whole life he’s been looking in the wrong places. Why should tonight be any different?"

I ultimately finished the book just after 4am, because I had to keep going at one point.

"This is all you really need, isn’t it? Just one good friend. Somebody you can be stupid with. Somebody who’ll peel you up off the ground, prop you against the wall."

I don't want to expand on the blurb & write a spoiler...you're either interested in the premise or not, I'm reviewing the horror aspect. It is gory, there is body horror, animal deaths, human deaths, it is gruesome

“We’re from where we’re from,” she says back. “Scars are part of the deal, aren’t they?”

Representation: Indigenous MCs are mostly from the Blackfeet & Crow tribes

"Wouldn’t that be the best revenge? Death is too easy. Better to make every moment of the rest of a person’s life agony."

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Cursing, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Suicide, Torture, Blood, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Two times, elk babies are cut out of bodies (one elk & one human), & once, a baby elk still in it's sak is dug up & the sak is cut open.

farmpaws's review against another edition

5.0

Absolutely incredible 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Gore, and Violence

niddy's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Cursing, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

cruspp_29's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Suicide, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Gun violence and Pregnancy

Minor: Drug abuse and Colonisation

devinjai6655's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Racism, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Alcoholism and Child death

steveatwaywords's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny tense medium-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

3.5

Jones is much praised in the horror community, and I can understand why. This grisly novel, about an elk spirit seeking revenge, is built upon one of the simplest of plot ideas, but along the way, Jones opens up dozens of insights into the politics and habits of Indian thought (the choice of "Indian" here is Jones's). These alone, for me, were worth the read.

And frankly, I'm glad they were there. In much the style of Tommy Orange, Jones creates hard characters made grittier (and more fragile) by their experiences. I loved the development of these folks, their tortured thinking, their cynical eye to what success looks like. And, if anything, I wanted more of it. 

And that's because the horror story itself, a well-trod vengeance-monster plot tracking down characters one at a time (hence the title!), has been done so often I was almost put off by it. We look, then, for what Jones does differently with the idea.

First, he has a real capacity for gore. For horror fans, this novel will not disappoint in that way. But this is insufficient on its own to sustain story. Better, he offers the most important nuance possible: how much of this creature is real and how much of it is a mere metaphor for their own cultural identity struggles? Certainly in the first half of the book, this ambiguity is played upon and could potentially become a real shocker to imagine explanations for Indian domestic violence and alcoholism and the like. But, a great disappointment, he seems to drop this idea as the story progresses.

But Jones's best opportunity for a hella novel comes at the end with a young basketball player. I don't want to spoil this extended scene at the story's climax, but I will say that I have rarely felt so anxious for a character over a sports game, and Jones's pacing and description is phenomenal. Here, too, however, I felt that Jones abandons an incredible moment with a few Deus ex machina interventions and about 40 pages of material afterwards just to bring us to a moral which--I think--he established far better without the closing melodrama. 

I know he has written several other books, and I will try more of him. In every case here, Jones has a power of narration that--if unleashed from the requisite tropes of the genre--could release him to greater storytelling. I hope to find it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, and Violence

ccaz's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, and Death of parent

kitkaty731's review against another edition

dark funny sad medium-paced

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

3.5

A grisly parable about inter-generational harm, particularly the harm men can do to women without meaning to. It’s a touch gruesome for me and some parts are hard to get through, but the writing style is vivid and really unique. Im not Native American so I’m sure there’s a lot that went over my head and I can’t speak to, but from an outsider perspective I think it was pretty well done!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Pregnancy, and Alcohol