Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

The Shining Girls, by Lauren Beukes

11 reviews

jamiejanae_6's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Abortion, Alcohol, Grief, Animal cruelty, Classism, Cursing, Gore, Body horror, Death, Gun violence, Injury/injury detail, Murder, Physical abuse, Misogyny, Sexual violence, Stalking, Sexism, Sexual content, Torture, and Violence

sunnysiding's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

4.25

A book centered on the victims of serial killings rather than idolizing the killer. Exciting, heart wrenching, achingly human.

Lost a star for the bizarre subplot of Dan being in love with Kirby. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Cursing, Animal cruelty, Gore, Suicide, Murder, Animal death, Blood, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/injury detail, and Stalking

Moderate: Drug use, Drug abuse, Misogyny, Addiction, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Abortion, Sexual content, Medical content, Mental illness, and Grief

Minor: Pregnancy, Homophobia, Transphobia, Domestic abuse, Deadnaming, Rape, and Sexual harassment

There is an entire chapter that heavily features animal injury/death:

Spoiler

Kirby's dog is killed, brutally, trying to protect her

. It's pretty expected for a book about serial killing but it is visceral and detailed. There are several other depictions of animal cruelty, injury, and death.

typedtruths's review against another edition

I picked this up on a whim. The writing is awful and I’m already bored. Not for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Child abuse, Animal cruelty, and Injury/injury detail

hillbilly_heroine's review against another edition

dark 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? No

1.5

The proportions of this book are all wrong. It’s 75% graphic descriptions of brutal murder from the POV of a serial killer and 25% everything else: plot and character development, how the mystery is solved, everything. You get more insight into the mind of the serial killer than the other main characters, and in theory that would be interesting but there’s a reason there’s a well-known profile of serial killers: they’re all kind of similar. He’s not an interesting guy, he’s just horrible, and we follow his POV for most of the book. 

Also, the first Malcolm chapter is the whitest white lady author writing that ever existed. It is shoot-me-directly-into-the-sun cringe that reads like the author has never met or spoken to a Black person. I see on the back of the book that she’s an American living in South Africa. I have questions. 

If you like thrillers, you won’t like this because the pace is actually slowed down because of how much time we spend murdering characters we don’t know and haven’t met. If you like time travel, you probably also won’t like this because it’s just a random plot device. If you like detailed descriptions of murdered women from the POV of a serial killer, and you wish books had significantly more of this, I guess this is for you? I honestly don’t know who this is for.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Gore, Injury/injury detail, Murder, Blood, and Animal death

Moderate: Racism, Transphobia, and Dysphoria

chloemakesbooks's review against another edition

mysterious 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

Poorly written, flat characters, and a total lack of suspense or fear- just sadness. A good editor should have seen where the real book was and refocused the story. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Ableism, Addiction, Injury/injury detail, Medical content, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Sexism, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, Grief, Gun violence, Misogyny, and Sexual content

bookish_arcadia's review against another edition

challenging dark tense slow-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Animal death, and Animal cruelty

lakeglitter's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Misogyny, Murder, Sexism, Stalking, and Violence

Moderate: Medical content, Racism, and Transphobia

Minor: Abortion and Drug abuse

ashley_elizabeth's review

challenging dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot

3.5

My expectations were quite low for this considering the degree of negative reviews I've seen. Color me surprised! While the pace was on the slower side for the majority of the book, I still found the story engaging and interesting enough to keep me invested. I was tasting flavors of Joe Hill's "NOS4A2" with the House and some characteristics of both Harper and Kirby, which I mean as a compliment as I absolutely adore Joe Hill.

I found myself a bit confused by Harper and how he came to be This Person doing These Things. We get a decent bit of his history and how he came to be in the House, but it doesn't quite feel like enough. I understand from the blurb by the author that the story was meant to focus much more on the victims rather than the perpetrator, but I think I would have liked a bit more of this backstory/character development. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Drug use, Murder, and Violence

Minor: Transphobia and Homophobia

omtoast's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death

sarah984's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

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

2.0

I thought this was an intriguing premise for a book, a time-travelling killer and a magical house, but the final product disappointed me. We spend WAY too much time in the killer’s head and he's extremely boring if you're not into reading the same rant about how he hates women 400 times. The romance with Kirby and her supervisor is stupid and never really amounts to anything

Spoiler

(and in the end she STILL needs a man to save her!)

and the explanation for the magic behind the house’s time travel abilities is the absolute most boring one you could pick. The "blaccent" on a few of the Chicago characters is borderline racist parody. The other shining girls are all really interesting but when you finally get invested in them they die horribly so it feels a bit pointless. For some reason I thought this was going to be about Kirby trying to save the others, but it isn't.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Death, Gore, Medical content, Misogyny, and Torture

Moderate: Drug abuse, Racism, Sexual content, and Gun violence

Minor: Ableism, Antisemitism, Deadnaming, Dementia, Excrement, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Miscarriage, Racial slurs, Self harm, Transphobia, and Vomit