Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes

6 reviews

jamiejanae_6's review against another edition

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:

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.

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

morriganivy's review against another edition

dark funny sad slow-paced

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

2.5

I enjoyed reading this book but it wasn't a good book. It was funny where it should have been tense.

The shining girls suffers from the author being unable to choose what type of story she wants to tell. Instead of picking a narrative or theme or genra to use it uses a huge mix and doesn't really succeed with any of them. 

The author as well has an obsession of telling us about every single character's sex life, even when it doesn't have any effect on the plot. It feels almost like a sexual grocery list when reading. I don't mind sex being in books or important to narrtives but it feels more like it's trying to sexualise murder victims than it does add anything to the story. 

Another issue I have is that while the book has a diverse array of characters almost all the diversity is in the characters who are brutally murdered and only appear for one or two short chapters over the whole book. On top of that the author leans heavily into sterotypes for them, making it feel more like the diversity was placed in to add to the 'shock' value that it relys on heavily. 

This isn't helped by the three main white protagonists being very unlikeable and boring. Kirby and Dan have a creepy romance that feels like padding through book, which doesn't get resolved by the end of the book. Harper (the serial killer) has the best sections to read but only because he is the worst serial killer ever, he gets caught and beaten up constantly.

My last note is that the book doesn't read like a well crafted narrative. It feels like you are slapped in the face with 'important' plot constantly but most elements get dropped or don't actually go anywhere. Even major plot points have this issue, by the end of the book there are no sastifying anwsers. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Murder, Racial slurs, Sexism, Transphobia, and Sexual violence

rachal_e's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Murder, Violence, Torture, and Stalking

Minor: Sexual content

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

(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