Reviews tagging 'Death'

The Gunslinger by Stephen King

37 reviews

raginsagein's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark medium-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? It's complicated

1.5

First real foray into Stephen King, and I wasn’t terribly impressed. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Misogyny, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Addiction, Child death, Cursing, Death, and Blood

Minor: Sexual content, Sexual violence, and Torture

prinsessenora4's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

Very interesting and well written. Quite slow paced (in my opinion). I liked the complexity of the characters and setting, and the deterministic feel of the story.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury

dovahkiin_shea's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark 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? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Murder

Moderate: Miscarriage

Minor: Animal death

vermispore's review against another edition

adventurous sad tense fast-paced

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

4.25

A really good book if you like Stephan King and can tolerate high fantasy that doesn't explain much right away. Well written and a fun read, but its the kind of book you love or hate.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Child death, Death, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Pregnancy, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

diegor's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective 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

4.0

Sarà molto probabile che dovrò tornare sui miei passi per cambiare il voto che sto dando in questo momento al primo capitolo de La Torre Nera. Da non lettore di King il libro si è subito presentato come molto impegnativo da leggere e comprendere, di sicuro non è una di quelle letture che prende per mano e cerca di spiegare quanto più possibile in modo chiaro e cristallino.

Passato questo scoglio iniziale e cambiato approccio alla lettura, lasciarsi trasportare dalla prosa di King diventa immediatamente un’esperienza unica nel suo genere, magari non per tutti, ma certamente indimenticabile per quelli che potrebbero apprezzarla.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Death, Gun violence, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Murder, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and War

nytephoenyx's review against another edition

dark reflective slow-paced

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

3.5

Not the strongest of the series and I don’t blame people for stopping here and not reading the full thing. That said, I’m glad I had people who told me to give it to Book 3. The Gunslinger may be dry and drag, but the Dark Tower series is fantastic. And I will say this for King - the world building is subtle but fabulous.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gun violence, Vomit, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Sexual content

allegeadventure's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-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

3.0

Surprisingly lots of sex and sexuality. Approximately 50% of the pages in the first three chapters make mention of sex or attraction in some form. Which is fine, I was just surprised.

Most women are described breasts first, including a woman that has no physical body. Most women are also begging the main character to have sex with them, despite most being villainous or disliked by the main character. Even the section told from a woman's perspective gives her the single one dimensional motivation of having sex with a man, yet fails to explore why she may be attracted to any man. Clearly written by a 19 year old boy for men with a limited ability to inhabit a woman's point of view as full human persons.

The main character is not only an anti-hero, but deeply unlikeable. 

That being said, this book, like many Steven King books, presents some uniquely novel ideas and defies limits of genre. The worldbuilding is fascinating, and despite the poor depiction of women, I am interested in knowing what happens next in the series.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gun violence, and Rape

Minor: Incest

wager5290's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

It's the start of The Dark Tower.  It stage in tremendously but is definitely a different beat from the rest of the series.  Don't cast off the tower on this book alone.  If you hate the main character in this book, give the next book (Drawing of the Three) a shot at least.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Death, Gun violence, and Sexual content

The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

parenthesis_enjoyer's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

I definitely enjoyed this book, but it is also definitely the start of a saga. Throughout the whole novel there's so, so many hints of a larger world, and bursts of rapid-fire world building. The world King is creating is strange and intriguing enough that I want to continue with this series just to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. There are also a fair few Stephen King-isms in here, to be sure, though I'm told not as many as the later entries. Really, it's a matter of how much you can tolerate the particular style. I'm writing this a long time after I read it so I apologize for the vagueness.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, and Gun violence

Moderate: Animal death, Misogyny, and Sexual content

ekcd_'s review against another edition

adventurous 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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Stalking, Car accident, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail