Reviews tagging 'Infidelity'

Sundial by Catriona Ward

67 reviews

bookish_af's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Violence, Medical trauma, Death of parent, and Murder

Moderate: Bullying, Child death, Medical content, and Pregnancy

aformeracceleratedreader's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad medium-paced

4.0

Please check trigger/content warnings. 
Quite enjoyed this. The twists and turns kept me interested along with the sister dynamic. Will def be checking out more from the author. 
If you choose to listen to audio with the ebook, just a heads-up some wording is different from each other. Minor differences but could potentially throw someone off 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Self harm, Torture, Vomit, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, and Abandonment

Minor: Murder

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, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Mental illness, and Physical abuse

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

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

annie_reads_books's review against another edition

dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Torture, Toxic relationship, and Death of parent

Moderate: Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Medical trauma, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

audreyesp's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense fast-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Gore, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

keen's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Child abuse, Infidelity, Miscarriage, and Murder

Minor: Child death, Drug abuse, Self harm, and Trafficking

heartofhorrors's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Child abuse, Confinement, Gore, Infidelity, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, and Abandonment

Minor: Drug use, Miscarriage, Torture, Trafficking, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, and Alcohol

reggiethebird's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

It's a thriller, alright. Vivid imagery throughout, and the plot twists and turns till the very last page. Plot twists can sometimes feel unearned, but I think here they were all reasonable, and nothing felt too out of place by the end.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Gore, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Bullying, Gun violence, Self harm, Vomit, and Trafficking

liahopkins's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

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

5.0

I picked this book up more by chance, but I am really glad I did. It is less of a horror book and more of a slightly bizarre thriller with some paranormal tones (?), but it was still captivating from start to finish!
The characters are all very fleshed out and layered, they are all pretty unlikable (except maybe Mia), and literally none of them are good people. Still, you can understand why they do the shit they do (to some extent at least), so that made me hate them less.
There are so many themes/images used again throughout the story (mirrors, maggots, clocks) which made the whole writing very cohesive. The author was also very good at leaving small clues everywhere (especially in the Arrowood chapters), but mixing them up with red herrings. I was so captured, putting tabs on everything I thought was important to the plot, and writing down all my new theories. Most of them were wrong. But I loved going through all of my notes again and understanding what they were really alluding to.
Most of the twists were very surprising, but made so much sense at the same time (I said "ohhhh" way too many times). The only twist I really didn't like was the last one (

aka Annie being the evil child and not Callie

), I felt like it undid a lot of what the author had established before. I almost lowered the rating because of this, but since it was literally just in the last chapter, I decided to just pretend like it never happened. At some points, I also thought the overall topic of what is happening at Sundial seemed a little far-fetched, but reading the Author's note and seeing it was based on actual events, I feel like that critique can't hold itself. Overall, there were a couple of those little moments where I thought "is this realistic?", so maybe 5 stars is a little too generous of me, but I really, really enjoyed the reading experience, so I feel like they are justified.

 

Also I have a theory I will not budge on and that I just need to put out somewhere: Callie kept talking about Rob touching her eyes as if adjusting contact lenses, even though she doesn't wear them. And in one chapter, it says something about Rob thinking about getting coloured contacts and just continue living as Jack. I don't care what anyone says, I think Rob is actually Jack who just pretends to be Rob, because Rob was killed by 23. I will die on that hill. 

PS: please note the content warnings because there are a lot!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Drug use, Infidelity, Mental illness, and Miscarriage

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Panic attacks/disorders

bxnnny's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-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

4.0

another crazy ass book by catriona ward that i will be thinking about for a long time. if you've read the last house on needless street, you know how nutty her writing is, but it's such a ride. this book goes back and forth between the past and the present, slowly piecing everything together. it becomes pretty clear at a certain point the major, key details but how it all came to be might not be what you expect. i couldn't tear myself away from this one, i was just truly enthralled in this story. the ending will leave you much like how you might have felt at the end of inception. please keep in mind there are A LOT of heavy trigger warnings in this (mainly animal cruelty/abuse/death and domestic abuse but there's many more so please check them all). i likely wouldn't have read this if i didn't already know catriona ward's writing previously to prepare myself mentally or hadn't been so interested in the story to be willing to push through.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Self harm, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Trafficking, Suicide attempt, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, and Gaslighting