Reviews tagging 'Grief'

House of Hunger by Alexis Henderson

14 reviews

zghutcheson01's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Emotional abuse, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Drug use, Physical abuse, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal death, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Grief, and Cursing

jasper_is_atypical's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Gore, Grief, Violence, Abandonment, Addiction, Alcohol, Blood, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Murder, Self harm, Animal death, Cannibalism, Classism, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Excrement, Toxic relationship, Trafficking, Body horror, Bullying, Gaslighting, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Sexual content

Moderate: Xenophobia, Adult/minor relationship, and Torture

Minor: Death of parent and Incest

pebbletown'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

Mfw when the sapphic gothic vampires book is actually rly fucked up and not just sexy: 😲

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Blood, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Medical trauma, Gore, and Animal death

Moderate: Child abuse and Grief

zany25's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

I think this book might work best if you read it kinda fast because there are definitely some slowdown sections that might drag, but I found enjoyable anyways. To me this book is all vibes, gothic classist mean girl lesbian vampire vibes. Which I liked, I wouldn’t say the plot is terribly strong until the ending, but if you’re along for the ride it’s definitely easy to get pulled in.

Also I’ve drawn blood for work in the real world and their blood letting descriptions were pretty spot on, aside from the sprinkling of supernatural of course, I enjoyed how they described the veins and scarring as a nice realistic touch. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Classism, Drug use, Toxic relationship, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Grief, Domestic abuse, Death, Alcohol, Infidelity, and Sexual content

Minor: Mental illness, Self harm, Incest, Body horror, Forced institutionalization, Terminal illness, and Addiction

slicebread's review

adventurous challenging dark hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

3.5

Honestly I expected so much more…it’s not my type of story 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Death, Blood, Toxic relationship, Mental illness, Violence, Terminal illness, Self harm, Murder, Gore, Death of parent, and Classism

Moderate: Grief

Minor: Cannibalism

magellen's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

If you enjoyed year of the witching well this is....also a book? Lesbian pseudo vampirism was a great hook and there's plenty of dark twisty moods and lustful passages HOWEVER the quality of the book itself is lacking. You get just enough environment to float through but it has an underdeveloped vibe overall, unsure of its setting and borrowing too heavily from a variety of eras/locations to make coherent sense. You just have to shrug and go alright, sure, vague works. 

The main thing for me was the repetitive language. Like woof. WOOOOOOF is the turn of phrase repetitive and adverb dependant in an intrusive way. So many SOs. Words used back to back in awkward cadence. 
You've got a lively mc who 'swallows dry' CONSTANTLY - babe, she can just swallow. Like christ if i hear the phrase SWALLOW DRY in 50years it'll still be too soon.
Unplug your brain and roll with the power imbalance bluebeard vibe, and you'll have fun. Pay attention and ugh. Also tw for blood. Every dang page someone's gushing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Blood, Chronic illness, Classism, Abandonment, Colonisation, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Injury/Injury detail, Addiction, Confinement, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Violence

vixenreader's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

In lieu of the legendary Elizabeth Bathory, this book has some amazing atmosphere, the prose is emotionally-wrenching, the cast of characters (led by a strong female lead) are nothing short of fascinating, and the horror is corporeal to a tee. Seriously, it’s a great book about exploitation, imbalance in relationship dynamics, and what it truly means to escape more than one toxic situation. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Bullying, Gaslighting, Medical trauma, Sexual content, Addiction, Death, Violence, Blood, Body horror, Gore, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cursing, Child abuse, Grief, Self harm, Trafficking, Alcohol, Drug use, Alcoholism, Confinement, Medical content, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Drug abuse, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Misogyny, Animal death, Forced institutionalization, and Gun violence

Be warned, there are scenes of moderately graphic lesbian sex, ageism, and how the system pits women against one another.

wrensreadingroom's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Sexual content, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Gaslighting, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Drug use, Body horror, Pedophilia, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Bullying, Cannibalism, Chronic illness, Medical content, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Murder, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Self harm, Torture, Violence, and Vomit

m_lee's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcohol, Blood, Vomit, Slavery, Torture, Alcoholism, Death, Drug abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Murder, Confinement, Drug use, Gore, Kidnapping, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Classism, Abandonment, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Physical abuse, Trafficking, Violence, Animal death, Domestic abuse, Grief, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Abandonment, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Suicidal thoughts, Forced institutionalization, Chronic illness, Cursing, Incest, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, and Pedophilia

bluejayreads's review against another edition

3.0

I have been dealing with some serious brain fog lately. This is the first book I’ve actually managed to finish in almost two weeks. It’s been hard to focus on reading anything, and that has definitely affected my reading experience. So there is a definite grain of salt to be added to the following opinions. 

This book went hard on the dark and disturbing Gothic vibes, leaning into the pleasure in pain, debauchery, and hedonism of a wealthy blood-drinking court. But that’s about all there is to this book – vibes. There’s nothing deeper or richer than that. 

The world is in general badly explained. Stuff like the political interactions of major and minor noble houses gets info-dumped, even though none of it matters and only one character from a house besides the House of Hunger is at all relevant. Stuff that actually was interesting and relevant to world-building and the overall atmosphere were completely glossed over. For example, a few sentences towards the beginning indicate that the north part of the world may be some sort of different realm or fae dimension that somehow connected to the ordinary world, but that is never explained or even confirmed. 

The biggest drawback was the characters had absolutely no motivation. They do things for no discernable reason and stop doing them for no discernable reason, and nobody seems to think that people could have reasons. Nobody has desires or reasons to act. Marion, the protagonist, states some motivations and desires, but she doesn’t act like she has any. At one point, she decides on a course of action because the plot said so and practically says as much. I can’t even call the characters flat because they have to have at least one dimension for that. Most of the characters were bland pretty girls in pretty dresses drifting through a gothic mansion at the whims of the author. 

This book is a strange reading experience because I 100% get what it’s going for. I intellectually know it’s going for a dark, creepy, gothic feeling, dripping with blood and sex and debauchery and hedonism. In my head I know that’s the picture that it’s trying to paint. But it stays in my head. There’s no feeling to it. The strange pacing probably helped with that, spending over half on setup that skipped over months at a time and then slamming directly to climax with hardly any middle to develop an actual story. Maybe it’s because of my brain fog, or maybe because the characters felt so lifeless. But it was all tell and no show. There were definite vibes, but no mood or atmosphere whatsoever. 

I think I finished reading this book because I wanted a dark and atmospheric gothic fantasy horror. I expected something rich, lush, and atmospheric, with blood and silk and sex and horror blending into a velvet tapestry of violent delights, and kept reading hoping it would show up eventually. But what I actually got was the LaCroix of gothic novels – hints of flavor enough to tell what it’s supposed to be, but nowhere close to real or satisfying. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Murder, Grief, Terminal illness, Death, Confinement, Torture, Violence, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Sexual content, and Drug use

Minor: Child abuse, Death of parent, and Animal death