Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

The Secret History, by Donna Tartt

49 reviews

hannalizzy's review against another edition

dark emotional funny informative mysterious reflective sad 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

5.0

5 Star Book, five star listening experience. It’s always so cool to hear it from the author themselves. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Body horror, Death, and Blood

laurataylor's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Injury/injury detail, Sexual content, Animal death, Blood, Gore, Grief, Murder, Physical abuse, Rape, Religious bigotry, Alcohol, Sexism, Toxic friendship, Animal cruelty, Bullying, Classism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Addiction, Alcoholism, Antisemitism, Car accident, Body horror, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Medical content, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Self harm, Suicide attempt, Gun violence, Incest, and Sexual assault

lottselgar's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious 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

5.0

i mean. just genius. i hate all the characters so much

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Drug use, Incest, Physical abuse, Alcoholism, Murder, Domestic abuse, and Body horror

Moderate: Antisemitism, Suicide attempt, Homophobia, and Racial slurs

Minor: Rape, Animal death, Sexism, Addiction, Toxic friendship, Violence, Sexual violence, Self harm, and Death

storyofmyshelf's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug use, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Physical abuse, Torture, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Alcoholism, Medical trauma, Toxic friendship, Violence, Self harm, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, Gaslighting, and Gun violence

alisasreads's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

5.0

kinda shocked at how much i enjoyed this book, i'd heard so many opinions about it that i had no idea what my own would be. as popular as it is right now i just had to read it and i'm glad i did. the tone, setting, style and the way the characters were written was just so good. it's exactly the type of story i like as a dark academia lover, i now understand why everyone always recommends this book in the genre. i literally just finished it and feel i really need to sit with the book before i can write a review that would do this book justice. so these were just some of my first thoughts.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Suicide

Moderate: Incest, Mental illness, Antisemitism, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Self harm, Body horror, Cursing, Addiction, Car accident, Alcoholism, Racial slurs, Classism, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Gaslighting, and Homophobia

Minor: Rape

frankielovestofu's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Murder, Drug use, Toxic friendship, and Death

Moderate: Sexual violence, Blood, Self harm, Body horror, Incest, Sexual assault, Suicide attempt, and Violence

Minor: Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, Physical abuse, Animal cruelty, Gun violence, Misogyny, Rape, Animal death, Racial slurs, Racism, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, and Injury/injury detail

Could do without the incest and racial slurs. Arguably, the racial slurs can be “justified” because they’re each only spoken once or twice by specific characters, and author either corrects behaviour of characters through another character or implies it’s not her thoughts. It’s clearly just to show how bigoted the characters saying it are, but still. The incest is left ambiguous at the end, whether it’s a long-term SA situation or consensual relationship turned sour at end. Either way, definitely could of been written without with very minor impact on plot and/or book. I.e. could still write controlling character without sexual subplot. Sorry not sorry. In addition, haven’t seen anyone mention it. There’s an extremely triggering (quick) mention of rape on page 484. Just skip the paragraph. It has NO effect on plot, it’s just unecessary and vulgar.

Spoiler

essentially the protagonist is speaking to the female character, and in mid-conversation (since book is his inner monologue) internally shares his sudden urge to strangle and rape his friend, then says the thought disappears as quickly as it came. conversation continues, never mentioned again. the worst part, is that the female character is in the midst of sharing her physical and sexual abuse from her brother when our protagonist thinks this

tomoonarmy's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative inspiring mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Panic attacks/disorders, Medical trauma, and Alcohol

Moderate: Toxic friendship, Alcoholism, Violence, Addiction, and Alcohol

Minor: Animal death, Death, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Medical trauma, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Blood, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Grief, Alcoholism, Abandonment, Car accident, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Injury/injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, Body horror, Eating disorder, and Cursing

peach_pie's review against another edition

I really wanted to like this book, but man it was so depressing and anxious. And I know it’s probably the point, but the characters really aren’t likeable. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Alcoholism, Cursing, Drug use, Homophobia, Suicide, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Self harm, Drug abuse, Grief, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Xenophobia, Violence, Murder, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Death, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Animal death, Addiction, Blood, and Incest

uhh_sydney's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-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

2.25

People hyped up this book so much as a dark academia necessity when all they did was chainsmoke, drink too much, and kill people. Richard is the most boring protagonist I’ve ever read. He’s just a vessel for other characters to tell him and by extension the reader what the plot line is. He has hardly any personality if his own. This book doesn’t show, it tells. I want to watch things fall apart before me, not have some other character ramble to Richard for three and a half pages. Also, why is everyone obsessed with Camilla?

Spoiler

Why does Richard love her besides she’s pretty I guess? Why does she get involved with Henry? Why does HER OWN TWIN BROTHER GET ROMANTICALLY INVOLVED WITH HER????? Still don’t understand the exact motives behind murdering Bunny either.

Felt a little uneasy about the portrayal of Francis’ homosexuality, but I can’t put my finger on it. Not necessarily a critique of the elite institution, which is what the book has the potential to be. Definitely more focused on the aesthetic. It had its bright moments, but overall I was dissapointed by this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Addiction, Alcohol, Blood, Body horror, Death, Drug use, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Incest, Injury/injury detail, Medical content, Violence, Murder, Self harm, Suicide attempt, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Physical abuse, Cursing, Eating disorder, Homophobia, Car accident, Panic attacks/disorders, and Sexual content

Minor: Classism, Rape, Religious bigotry, and Infidelity

nenya's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

5.0

This book was truly interesting - I know that this is generally a very weak adjective but in this case, it is entirely true. It has a somewhat descriptive but then again very subjective and somewhat sentimental first-person narrative which took some time to get used to. But once I did, it was inevitable to fall into such a deep reading flow (I sometimes felt like the book was luring me in) that even the „boring“ scenes make you not want to stop reading. The characters in this book were so incredibly real and deeply (veryyy deeply) flawed which made the reading experience very intense and mysterious. There were some scenes (Chapter 8, i‘m looking at you) that just totally knocked me out of my socks, there is no better way to describe it. Due to the limited knowledge of the narrator and protagonist himself, plot twists are nearly impossible to predict here (unless of course they were being foreshadowed intentionally) which I loved.
However, it is very important here to check the trigger warnings because there is A LOT going on - stuff that is obvious very soon and other things that take a lot of time to become truly clear.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Abandonment, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Antisemitism, Blood, Body horror, Classism, Drug use, Gaslighting, Grief, Gore, Emotional abuse, Incest, Homophobia, Medical content, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, and Suicide attempt