Reviews tagging 'Death'

The Cipher by Kathe Koja

6 reviews

saarraahh11's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• 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

Moderate: Body horror and Violence

Minor: Animal cruelty, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

sarah984's review against another edition

challenging dark slow-paced

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

4.0

I've been wanting to read this one for a while and it did not disappoint: nasty characters in nasty situations as everything spins out of control. It got a little repetitive for me near the end and the kindle edition had some annoying OCR errors but overall highly recommended to anyone who likes weird horror.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Ableism, Drug use, Eating disorder, Excrement, Vomit, Car accident, and Suicide attempt

kurumipanda'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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Excrement, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Drug use, Blood, Vomit, and Grief

Minor: Confinement

judassilver's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective 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? Yes

2.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Self harm, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Drug use, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Gun violence, Homophobia, Excrement, Cannibalism, and Car accident

sapphire_mayo's review

dark emotional reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, and Murder

Moderate: Addiction, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt

stephanieluxton's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

2.25

Let's start with what I liked: the premise was great. A mysterious hole appears in a storeroom and anything that enters the void changes. Love it. The possibilities felt endless. Some of the writing felt incredibly poetic and the writing did a great job at making you feel the depressed, grey, bleak atmosphere of the story. This book started out with a pretty fast pace so I thought it would be a wild ride. Then it came to a screeching halt. 
The middle of this book is so boring. I felt like nothing that happened in the entire bulk of the book meant anything. There was extra characters we didn't need. The spooks basically stop entirely til the end. Then it ends and I didn't appreciate the level of ambiguity there was. It felt anticlimactic. This book could have been way shorter.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, and Alcohol

Moderate: Body horror, Bullying, Confinement, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Excrement, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

The animal cruelty involves bugs and a mouse being deformed and killed by going through the hole. There's a lot of alcohol. The relationship between the main characters is very toxic. There's a few weird sex scenes. There's some body horror in the form of a hand wound that kind of mutates and spreads. A character gets their ankles broken and is killed. Overall I wouldn't consider this story to be that graphic.