Reviews tagging 'Murder'

The Deep by Nick Cutter

19 reviews

allisonmalakowsky's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Grief, Incest, Violence, Vomit, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gore, Animal cruelty, Blood, Body horror, Death, Fatphobia, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Murder, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Confinement, Kidnapping, Pandemic/Epidemic, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Sexual content, and Sexual harassment

changelingreader_adrian's review against another edition

dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Gore, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Death, Fatphobia, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, Pandemic/Epidemic, Physical abuse, Suicide attempt, Murder, Sexual assault, Death of parent, Dementia, Body horror, Child abuse, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, and Emotional abuse

stardustvein's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Torture, Mental illness, Murder, Animal cruelty, Blood, Child death, Child abuse, Animal death, Body horror, Grief, Confinement, Physical abuse, and Gore

Moderate: Rape, Pedophilia, Kidnapping, Incest, Domestic abuse, Body shaming, Cursing, Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Pandemic/Epidemic, Fatphobia, Sexual assault, and Panic attacks/disorders

esslesmcgee's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense medium-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Incest, Fatphobia, Animal cruelty, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Gore, Emotional abuse, Body horror, Blood, Grief, and Confinement

Moderate: Pandemic/Epidemic, Cursing, Medical content, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual assault, and Kidnapping

Minor: Body shaming and Bullying

chemicallykat's review against another edition

1.75

I'm an absolute sucker for the deep sea. Anything set on the sea floor is automatically on my tbr regardless of genre or quality. If anyone has any recs... let me know!!

Sections of this bored me and other sections seemed like they were just there for shock value. 

This was creepy, dark, and graphic. The beginning was slow but introduced some neat concepts. The middle lost me a bit. I wanted to know what was going on and I was not getting answers! The way this book is written is confusing. Half the time I couldn't figure out what was real and what wasn't.

The writing wasn't to my preference - some scenes felt unnecessary, and the characters and dialogue drove me nuts.

The author tends to make a lot of comparisons, "it looked like a glob of partially set Jell-O" and sometimes these came back-to-back and felt redundant. If you say something is colorless, you don't also have to make a comparison to something colorless in the next line.

The way the main character kept describing his mom weirded me out. Every time she was mentioned, even in passing, he'd make a comment to remind us his mom was fat. In general, character descriptions and characterization were sorely lacking. Characters seemed like they were only there for the plot. There's no development and I could not tell you a single thing about any of them beyond factual things like "scientist" or "father."

Beyond that, the plot was THIN. Chapters are repetitive and everything was predictable. Throwing in a "magical" element felt like a lazy way to skip explaining anything properly, and quite frankly, I don't get it.

The child SA was so unnecessary and didn't add a single thing - so why was it included? There are a million other things that could have been included instead. It didn't add to the creepy/horror factor the book was developing and felt like shock-value because it's thrown in and never dealt with properly.In general, the sexual stuff seemed like it could have been cut. At multiple points there's a paragraph or two detailing how hard a man's dick is. What was the relevance? Am I missing something?

I was intrigued by the mysteries of "the Gets" and the ambrosia, but I don't feel like any of that was wrapped up or handled properly. Instead, this became an intentionally confusing gorefest that had a... weird ending that very much didn't satisfy me

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Confinement, Death, Rape, Blood, Body horror, Death of parent, Fatphobia, Gore, Incest, Medical content, Murder, Animal death, Child death, Child abuse, Sexual assault, and Violence

trippyotter's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

3.0

I'll admit my rating is based heavily upon what happened to LB, I'm so angry about what transpired and that an animal would be allowed to suffer in such a horrific way. 

Also, while reading the book, I felt it could have easily been 50-100 pages shorter, but come to find out all the excessive trips down memory road and the journey entries was actually critical to the ending. 

After several memory flashbacks, I was about ready to close the book when Luke was reading the journal. It just went on forever. Then what happened to LB angered me so much that I was basically emotionally numb (maybe that was the intent?) that I just finished the book. 

I'm not sure if I'd truly recommend this to anyone, but if you decide to take the plug, beware of the various triggers.

Triggers: missing child, child abuse, child sexual assault, emotional abuse, toxic relationships, death, gore, grief, animal abuse, animal testing, animal death 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Bullying, Child death, Death, Kidnapping, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Death of parent

e_gracereads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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

This book is a 5 star read until literally the last… 20 pages? Which is just really typical for Nick Cutter, unfortunately. I LOVE his plots and I LOVE his books and they’re nauseating and gut wrenching, and then the last 20 pages rolls around and totally ruins it. The plot gets lost by whatever weird crock shit he’s come up with, overexplaining things to the point where they’re no longer scary, and the ending will just leave you unsatisfied. I am just not ever impressed with how his books end — he spoon feeds you the answer instead of just leaving you with dread. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Animal death, Death, Animal cruelty, Confinement, Suicide, Emotional abuse, Gore, Child abuse, Murder, Medical content, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, and Injury/Injury detail

lithoerary_atria's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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

2.5

the troop by nick cutter was one of absolute favourites this year and truly the mastery over body horror this guy has makes me wanna study his brain. and that thing persists here too!! that being said i didn't like this one as much i hoped to do.

lemme break it down for ya:

parts 1, 2 & 3? utterly boring and mind-numbing and the whole writing down the sounds made didn't help. also i DIDN'T appreciate the numerous flashbacks that went on for pages. they could've been done away with. 

parts 4 & 5? HELL YEAH, that's my stuff!! horrors beyond human comprehension & feeling helpless? fuck yes!! the writing was still meh tho especially with those internal voices inside luke's mind. it was silly & brought you out of the story lol.

part 6? i- we don't speak about it lol.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Murder, Child death, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death, Medical content, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicidal thoughts, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Animal cruelty, Emotional abuse, Gore, and Suicide

Moderate: Sexual assault, Fatphobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, Incest, Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, and Sexual content

acbrummitt's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Pedophilia, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Murder, Grief, Body horror, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Gore, Medical content, Self harm, and Torture

alsavini's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-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? It's complicated

4.5

"There are places on Earth where light is unwelcome. Light has no power down here. Darkness is king. Light flees the dark, or it gets devoured."

In October I try to only read horror books and this was a great way to kick off my spooky book season! The Deep starts off with a global pandemic called the gets. Its basically like a Alzheimer's but you also develop black spots and anyone can get it. There is a station, the Trieste, down at the bottom of the pacific ocean in the Mariana Trench (the deepest part of the ocean) where some of the most brilliant men on Earth are researching for a cure. Things go haywire and Luke, the veterinarian brother of Clayton, one of the scientists in the the Trieste, goes down to the station to see if he can help his brother. Let the horror begin.

I already have a fear of drowning, suffocation, and treading open water so I knew this one would crawl under my skin. Someone else described this book as The Abyss meets The Shining and that description couldnt be more perfect. At no point did I know what was going to happen next. Keep in mind they're 8 miles below the sea level. At any point if one thing were to go wrong the pressure is so immense they would be crushed in an instant. It's a hard no from me.

I guess Luke is technically the protagonist but I would argue the station itself is the main character, the way it comes alive during the story. The characters were okay but this is definitely a plot driven story.

I found myself holding my breath several times while reading. The concept was very unique. Perfect amount of psychological/body horror. The only issue I had with it is that there is animal cruelty/death that had me bawling like a baby. I dont like that in movies or books. The ending was interesting, like a horrible fever dream where I had no idea what was happening in the best way. Safe to say, if you're looking for a horror book to start your spooky book season off with, this is a great choice.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Animal cruelty, Murder, and Animal death