Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero

10 reviews

monarchbooks's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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? Yes

4.0

I don't know what I was expecting going into this book but it was not what I got. Every page shocked me. A bit wordy and heavy on metaphors. Unexpected queer rep. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, Suicide, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Grief, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Lesbophobia, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Homophobia, Kidnapping, and Alcohol

Minor: Deadnaming

sn8man's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, Blood, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Death, Gore, Homophobia, Violence, Kidnapping, Grief, Suicide attempt, Murder, Gaslighting, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Mental illness and Sexual content

dexkit10's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Cursing, Homophobia, and Injury/Injury detail

tak_everlasting's review against another edition

funny mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.25

I liked the ambition with the mixed writing styles, but it didn't ulimately serve a purpose or add to the story. Also, this author clearly thinks that he is not writing women in a way that objectifies them- he totally is.  The way they described themselves was iffy, but the way they described each other was worse. Especially the

romance between Kerri and Andy.

The story itself was fun, although it was very much a play through of action movie tropes, which was then pointed out in numerous 4th wall breaks. The plot carried the characters, rather than the other way around.

The characters were functional, but their dynamic didn't feel complex enough to have been actual childhood friends. Also Peter, the dead guy, tends to be really slimey toward his supposed friends.

This is somewhat weakly explained because we learn later that he isn't the real Peter. A twist dampened by the fact that Nate suspected that from the beginning, and never tells the rest of the team that he is seeing their dead 5th member.

 

Overall the writing felt underedited. The conclusion felt unfinished, especially with a lot of the stuff around Peter remaining unclear

when did he start betraying them? was the "ghost" even part of him, or was it all manifested by the villain?

The strongest scene in the book is when they have to explain to their mentor figure that Peter died.

which is unfortunate, because the mentor also dies and we feel nothing from them- either in the moment, or processing it after. the same goes for learning that their dead childhood friend had his corpse stolen and reanimated, with the express purpose of luring them to the lake and murdering them. is it just me? or should your characters have some complex and messy feelings about that?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Suicide, Torture, Violence, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Drug abuse, Gore, Homophobia, Transphobia, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Gaslighting

Minor: Abortion and Acephobia/Arophobia

ash_ton's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny 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? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Okay so. Originally I had given this book 4 stars but after thinking about it, I lowered it to 3. I couldn't get past a lot of things no matter how much I liked the actual story.

First, though, no matter how much I complain, I did like the book. I like the concept of the 

talismans

even though I know that isn't a novel (haha) idea. I was still shocked and wasn't expecting 

the kids to be part of the ritual.

I also wasn't expecting 

Dunia Deboen to be involved, nor was I expecting her to be Damian Deboen.

Maybe in hindsight it should have been obvious but *shrugs*. So, despite the things I'm about to complain about, I did like the book because the story itself was good, in my opinion.

These are things I know others have talked about, so I'm just going to be another voice agreeing with them. The random insertion of the script format throughout the book wa sso jarring and unecessary. It did nothing for the storyline. If all the dialogue would have been in script format, sure. But that would've sucked and I would have hated it lol. In the same vein, I hated the amount of ridiculous "big" words added that seemingly were only there to beef up the sentences. Also, the made up words as well. Myriaphonic, as far as I can tell from googling, is not a real word. After some clicks, I found out a miraphone is a type of tuba, so maybe that's what he was going for? But like, bud. Pick something else.
The one random 4th wall break 75% into the book was also super jarring and unnecessary to me. If you're going to break the 4th wall, only doing it once isn't gonna cut it. Is the book self-aware or not?
My one last small gripe is how 

Dunia/Damian spoke at the end. Like he was trying to be old but hip at the same time. No one, not even a 200 year old dude, is gonna talk that cringy and weird.

 

One last thing. I'm confused about the ending. I get that Tim is Sean's great-grandson. Fine. Makes sense. But 

the spirit inhabiting Tim says he's been possessing all the dogs and that it got easier when Kerri was at college? And then the spirit makes Tim smile "bittersweetly" and says "It's all been done before." Bro wtf does that mean.

Idk if I'm just stupid, but I don't understand. I don't see anyone else mentioning that part.

Bottom line: I liked the book/story, I just mostly hated some of the writing style. Usually, I can get over that and in this case I did. I'd still recommend it, especially if you like Scooby Doo and/or retellings.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Mental illness, Violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Alcoholism, Bullying, Drug use, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Murder, and Alcohol

Minor: Homophobia, Transphobia, and Lesbophobia

kalzeb's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Cursing, Gore, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal cruelty and Death

Minor: Drug use, Homophobia, Sexual content, Suicide, Car accident, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Colonisation

marykendrick666_'s review against another edition

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

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

1.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Mental illness, Transphobia, and Violence

Moderate: Ableism, Body horror, Cursing, Homophobia, Suicide, Blood, and Toxic friendship

epeolatri's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

5.0

This has very easily become one of my new favorite novels. I loved the author’s writing style and humor. Each character was amazing and fucked up in their own way. Every time I thought I had it figured out something even crazier happened, right up until the last sentence. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Gun violence, Mental illness, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Homophobia, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Sexism, Car accident, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Sexual content and Torture

fakepumpkins's review

dark mysterious sad slow-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism

Moderate: Homophobia and Suicide

Minor: Transphobia

kaylatee's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

1.0

Only worth checking out if you're a die-hard Scooby-Doo fan, and even so, you may still be offended.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Cursing, Death, Gore, Homophobia, Suicide, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Alcohol

Minor: Deadnaming

Huge spoiler without context:

A character is revealed to be transgender and one of the lead characters does something to her that is super transphobic, with transphobic reasoning. The same lead also continues to somewhat refer to her with her deadname after the reveal (saying things like "before, when she used to be" and "when she was")