Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Sundial by Catriona Ward

175 reviews

lspishock's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Animal death, and Animal cruelty

bittie_bee's review against another edition

challenging dark 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Animal death, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Miscarriage and Animal cruelty

Minor: Drug use

seekaymack's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Drug abuse, Child abuse, and Miscarriage

eggplantia5's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

3.5

A creepy and tense exploration into families and sisterhood mixed with a little spookiness and science.  A perfect read near Halloween.

Spoiler

Everyone is kind of the villain, (except Callie), but everyone is also trying their best. You don't really get to know Irving and find out why he's so terrible, although maybe just being a white male from a rich family is enough characterization?

The story unfolds well, even when I thought I figured out the twists in advance, there was additional color that made the payoff satisfying.

Borrowed from library, could see myself buying in the future.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Blood, Death, Gore, and Violence

sasisaskia's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Animal death, Toxic relationship, Miscarriage, Mental illness, Death of parent, Drug use, Animal cruelty, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, and Child abuse

illtakethenightshiftx's review against another edition

dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.0

I wasn’t expecting to love this as much as I did because I wasn’t the biggest fan of The Last House on Needless Street, but I enjoyed Sundial immensely. It’s weird, foreboding, eerie, and heart wrenching. 

I like a dual POV and it extremely effective in this story and really sucked me in - I read the last half of this book in one night. This book is DARK and it just gets darker as the story progresses and the ending will both crush you and possibly make you feel like Dani at the end of Midsommar.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Violence, and Animal cruelty

Moderate: Mental illness and Drug abuse

strawberryfox's review against another edition

dark emotional 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Domestic abuse, Animal death, and Murder

Moderate: Vomit, Child abuse, and Miscarriage

carl_still_reading's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Sundial is a mixed bag for me. Whilst I enjoyed most of it, some parts didn’t work out for me during it. While I was hesitant whilst listening, by the end everything comes together and gives us a final shocking reveal. 

It explored toxic family dynamics really well and reminded me of Sharp Objects and the inspiration it draws from it. 

However I did find the flashbacks and Arrowood sections to be slow,weird and sometimes boring. Whilst I appreciated the explanation of Rob’s childhood, I wish the flashbacks were shortened down and the Arrowood sections taken out, as the story within a story didn’t really add anything to the main story it was trying to tell. 

Overall I did enjoy my time with Sundial and the ending definitely had me shook in typical Catriona Ward fashion. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Animal cruelty, Toxic relationship, and Emotional abuse

livlamentloathe's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

4.0

Until Rob and Callie got to Sundial and the flashback story started, I thought this was going to be an ableist story about mental illness. But it’s not that simple. It’s twisty in an unpredictable way. There’s enough going on that I was tricked into not knowing what would happen next! I’m typically ahead of the twist and find myself disappointed to have been right. But book isn’t about “a twist.” It’s not even a multitude of twists, although kinda. It’s a whole lot of fucked up normality that stewed in the heated desert of Sundial until finally… you know.

This was a very long book, and I wasn’t interested at turns. I put Baby Teeth down for the very reasons I didn’t enjoy the start of Sundial. But this story swerved past the ease of mom and daughter dislike each other. It kept going and going and going. When you think you know the truth, there’s still more buried. And ya know, isn’t that just the way (of people)? We’re all more complex than what others see us as. Callie doesn’t know everything about Rob, and Rob doesn’t know everything that is Callie, or Jack, or even Annie. The only simple thing is Irving. Trust a man to be violent and predictable. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, and Mental illness

Moderate: Self harm, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicide attempt, Violence, Animal death, Infidelity, and Physical abuse

Minor: Death, Drug abuse, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, and Murder

honestlysean's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.5

will add full review later 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Child abuse and Addiction