Reviews tagging 'Gore'

The Girls by Emma Cline

23 reviews

issyd23's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Like a more interesting version of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood 4⭐️

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Drug abuse, Grief, Hate crime, Rape, Addiction, Body horror, Blood, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Abandonment, Gaslighting, Mental illness, Pregnancy, Gore, Sexual violence, Violence, Trafficking, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Bullying, Death, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Mass/school shootings, Self harm, and Sexual harassment

plumdustsuns's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense 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

1.0

I think Cline is a really talented writer and has a way with words that you come across only once in a while within books. I had picked up this book going off of some prompt/review saying it was about a lesbian and a cult. While that isn’t wrong, it didn’t quite encapsulate the entirety of the situation either. 
I think personally the book would have profited a lot from Evie being upwards of 17. While it would have taken away a bit of the hopeless lamb, but it wouldn’t have been that much. I think it would have lent to Evie and Suzanne’s relationship and Evie’s character in general.

Spoiler

There wasn’t much going on in their relationship besides Evie pining, not until Suzanne let Evie out of the car and visited her at boarding school, was some texture added. It would have made a more engaging story to have Suzanne a bit more fleshed out and receptive rather than this idealized character Evie was projecting everything onto. And the ‘connection’ she kept talking about in terms of her and Suzanne would have been justified and engaging. 
  Aside from that, all the SA on a 14 year old and this  promiscuity put upon them in literature makes me really uneasy and angry, honestly. I don’t think teenagers are ever that deliberate of sex in the way it’s presented in books like this. While it is shown that Evie is forced into it, it’s played off for the most part by her being like “oh well,” until the Mitch situation. Even that didn’t have enough anger or was presented in a bad light. I’m always aware in books of what writers project onto their characters and of what age because it is a choice, and not inspired off of true events ( entirely here anyway). 
I also found it really redundant that all of this happened over a fucking record deal. I wish it was something else and the bad blood between Russel and Mitch had more weight and tension, especially for the girls. (I read up and see  this is what happened in real life but just copy pasting these events without much of a weight or exploration just feels like a waste and triggering for no reason.) I wish it would have subverted the tale by instead having the girls turn on Russel somehow and kill him instead. That would have made a better story line.

 
I kept reading this book as it had a premise for having the opportunity to explore queerness, girlhood and the patriarchy in depth. However, besides from some insightfully written paragraphs on what it is like to be a girl, it feels rather flat in all the other departments. And it felt rather disappointing to finish this triggering book to get through with all the events just falling flat onto nothing overall and by the end. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Pedophilia, Gun violence, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Death, Sexual content, Emotional abuse, Murder, Physical abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Gore, Toxic relationship, Child abuse, Death of parent, Sexual violence, Drug use, Rape, Blood, Gaslighting, Kidnapping, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence

taliatalksbooks's review against another edition

challenging dark slow-paced

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

3.0

The Girls by Emma Cline was a snapshot into the life of Evie and her involvement with a cult. I really wanted to love this book, but I felt like there were a few aspects that took me out of the story. First, the lens through with the story was told: and older Evie looking back at the past. While I didn’t mind the flashbacks, I thought the addition of these young characters who didn’t seem to care much about anything was out of place. I think the story could have been much more grounded if we were experiencing the traumas first hand for the entire novel, though I did like the added input from older Evie. I thought that the book was well-written, but the time jumps seemed random, more than planned. I also wish we had seen more of the progression of the cult behavior. It seemed to go pretty quickly from zero to one hundred and back again, with a lot of the middle ground feeling as though it lasted forever. Evie’s position on the outskirts created a blank space, that I wished we could have had filled in. A lot of the questions Evie had, especially about the other girls,were a lot of the same questions I had as a reader and these felt unanswered. Overall, it was an enjoyable read, but it was definitely a slower pace than I was anticipating with a cult novel.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Murder, Rape, Violence, Pedophilia, Domestic abuse, Drug use, and Adult/minor relationship

rachel24x7's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Sexual content, Pedophilia, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Murder and Cursing

Minor: Gore, Physical abuse, and Eating disorder

astha_shah's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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

3.0

Pretty solid book, well written, kinda twisted. I was into it. The jumping between points in time, though, took me out of it a little

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship

Moderate: Gore

gwenisnonbinary's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Cursing, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Rape, Sexual violence, Drug use, Body horror, Gore, Pedophilia, Sexual harassment, Alcohol, and Murder

Moderate: Physical abuse

thesecretsapphic's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad 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? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Blood, Gore, Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, Child abuse, Death, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Adult/minor relationship, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Pedophilia, and Sexism

hannahlouise_'s review against another edition

dark emotional reflective 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

3.25

i for the most part enjoyed this book and read it quickly but it was lacking in parts and i didn’t hugely connect? well written and a really interesting concept, the iconic California 1969 based on Manson murders etc, but i did feel it could have been executed better.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Rape, Sexual content, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Blood, Toxic friendship, Gaslighting, Gore, Death, Drug use, Murder, and Sexual assault

greatexpectations77's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

The first couples pages of the book were over-the-top flowery language, and I wasn't sure if I was going to stick around, but it calmed down a little bit. I think the strongest parts were the descriptions of the very challenging time of pre-teen/early teenager-dom, when girls are really trying to just figure out how they fit into the world. I did not like the use of "Asiatic" to describe childlike banter - that feels.... not right and insulting to Asian languages. Just really unnecessary. I'm not sure if I'd read this author again because I might just not be able to get on her level of stuffed sentences. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Toxic relationship, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Body horror, Drug use, Sexual content, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Gore, Murder, Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, Addiction, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Alcohol, Bullying, and Excrement

Minor: Gaslighting, Child abuse, Fatphobia, Animal cruelty, and Animal death

sammiesshelf's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad slow-paced

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

2.0

This book fell incredibly flat for me. I was excited by the premise of a Manson-esque cult story, and the cover caught my eye, but I was greatly disappointed. One thing I believe contributed greatly to this was the perspective the story is told from. The narrator is Evie Boyd, a girl who spent the summer leading up to the murders with the cult. She was 14 at the time. However, when she is telling the story, she is somewhere in her mid to late fifties from what I gathered, so the tone you are left with is jaded and depressing. It seems as if her life sort of peaked that summer, so her whole vibe is just sad and lonely. This makes it so that you lose a lot of the illusion of the cult in the beginning. Immediately, Evie points out the faults at the ranch, even though she didn't pay much mind to them at the time. For me, this made it feel like I was just reading about a bunch of dirty (like literally don't bathe) scammers the whole time, instead of almost experiencing the way they use their charisma and "message" to pull people in. I think much of what I expect a cult book to be is sort of through the eyes of someone falling for the trap, not someone who escaped and is recounting it forty years later. 

Additionally, there was a weird story going on in the present tense, which felt completely unnecessary. I think the author was going for some sort of parallel with the story of the cult, but it didn't really work and just made the book harder to get through. 

Overall, the book dragged terribly and was very easy for me to put down. The only time I found myself reading more than thirty pages at a time was when I finally said "Oh my god I want to get this over with." An enticing concept, but sadly a poor execution.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Drug use, Gore, Toxic friendship, Sexual content, Adult/minor relationship, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Pedophilia, and Violence

Moderate: Physical abuse, Child abuse, and Emotional abuse