Reviews tagging 'Child death'

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

14 reviews

catievalentino'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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Incest, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Grief, Suicide attempt, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Animal cruelty and Animal death

Minor: Child death, Chronic illness, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, and Car accident

the_cat_of_mishief's review against another edition

challenging dark 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, and Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Suicide

kimveach's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective tense slow-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

3.5

This book is hard to review and equally hard to rate.  I both liked it and was annoyed by it.  It was slowly paced, but the further I got into the book, the more I wanted to finish it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Bullying, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Incest, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Murder, Outing, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

addythebookbat's review against another edition

mysterious slow-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Cancer, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Incest, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol

alexschrade's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.0

I feel like I need to read that book again to fully understand it, but generally i did like the mood and it made me reflect on a lot of things, which I guess is the goal.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Incest, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Murder, and Alcohol

Moderate: Child death, Domestic abuse, Suicide, Transphobia, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Religious bigotry

daybreakreads's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-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? Yes

3.0

The first 90% of this book: overhyped, poorly researched (details that were factually inaccurate; Plano, CA is two hours’ driving distance from Disneyland, he couldn’t have seen the fireworks from his house, one of the characters reads a book written by the “Persians” which was in Arabic — odd for a book so focused on foreign language, etc.), rather pretentious.

Last 10%: twist ending was interesting, and I enjoyed it, but it didn’t justify the 22 hours I spent listening to the audiobook. The author was the voice actor, and the voice she used for Bunny was incredibly irritating.

Interesting notes:
- this is a slow burn. Doesn’t pick up at all until ~50%. The writing style is intriguing
- none of the characters (even side ones) are “good guys”
- there’s a ton of random racist/antisemetic/homophobic comments, but they’re usually a one-off thing. The only exception to this was 3/4 of the way through there was a recurring trend of anti-Arab things that served no point to the overall plot whatsoever. It was odd for a book written in the 90s. There was a fake country full of “jihadist terrorists” mentioned several times, “sand [n word]” used against a Palestinian (who was only written for a brief moment in which he was yelling as the “angry Arab man” stereotype, “Arab” and “Arabic” were used incorrectly, general xenophobic remarks, etc. And then it just randomly stopped. 

As a Muslim the last thing just came across a bit ridiculous more than anything. I didn’t see the relevance, or the reason to focus significantly more on that than the other marginalized groups.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Alcoholism, Bullying, Child death, Death, Drug use, Gun violence, Incest, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Self harm, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Murder, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Infidelity, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Fire/Fire injury, and War

noo's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Murder, and Alcohol

Moderate: Addiction, Child death, Drug use, Homophobia, Incest, Suicide, Blood, Grief, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Animal death, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racism, Forced institutionalization, Vomit, Kidnapping, Car accident, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

luciiee's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Incest, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Alcohol

rory_john14's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Incest, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Murder, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Grief, and Classism

Minor: Biphobia, Cancer, Child death, Eating disorder, Infidelity, Rape, Sexual assault, Vomit, Antisemitism, Kidnapping, Stalking, Car accident, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Gaslighting

becreadsbooks_'s review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

5.0

So sick and twisted I wanna punch Donna Tartt.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Dysphoria, and Classism