Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

Angels & Demons, by Dan Brown

14 reviews

ildrihr's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-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? No

2.5

If you don't pay any attention, it's fun, but the moment you start to think about things it all falls apart. Langdon is a Mary Sue, most of the characters are seriously unlikeable, and the ending was a shitshow. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Death, Murder, Body horror, Sexism, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Physical abuse, Violence, and Suicide

Moderate: Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Rape, Terminal illness, Religious bigotry, and Sexual assault

francisca_pitterle's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Injury/injury detail, Religious bigotry, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, and Grief

Moderate: Sexual assault

laurajordensharris's review against another edition

adventurous dark informative mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death of parent, Genocide, Torture, War, Ableism, Death, Grief, Gun violence, Hate crime, Injury/injury detail, Murder, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Abandonment, Body horror, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Rape, Religious bigotry, Violence, Kidnapping, Medical content, and Physical abuse

malignant_gnome's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Religious bigotry, Violence, Body horror, Death, Blood, Chronic illness, Islamophobia, Gore, Kidnapping, Murder, Sexism, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Torture, and Physical abuse

Minor: Rape

rachelditty's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious fast-paced

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

3.0

I wanted to reread The Da Vinci Code but decided to read the first of the Robert Langdon series before getting to the second book again. Angels and Demons was a fine enough read, definitely wasn't as pulling for me as I was hoping. I didn't love that the villain of the first three-quarters of the story was a stereotype, and I also disliked the insta-love between Langdon and Vitoria. 

What I did like about the story was how Langdon just seemed to be Some Guy for the first two and a half hours of the audiobook--he had no idea why he was there an neither did anyone else; he was just the first person they found who was a professor of religion when they googled it, which I find so funny. He was basically useless for three hours and just acted as a walking purse for Vitoria. I thought it was hilarious.

I also think a lot of male authors try to make good female characters and fail horribly. Dan Brown, however, seemed like he was trying to make a cookie-cutter female support character and accidentally made a pretty cool woman. I really liked Vitoria. Again, thought her relationship with Langdon was pretty rushed and didn't feel right, but I liked their friendship, it was fun. Plus, their final interaction where Vitoria said Langdon only wasn't religious because he hadn't let her fuck him yet was. Pretty great, I'm not going to lie. It was fun.

I also liked the balance that seemed to iron out by the end of the story between religion and science. Learning about the Pope and his own utilization of both polarized opposites was interesting, and I thought it was cool.

Didn't love this book, and it wasn't as fun as I was expecting, but I appreciated the twist at the end, and I like that Robert Langdon was kind of pathetic. Love that for him.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence, Blood, Body horror, Murder, and Death

alexandramrtin's review against another edition

adventurous informative mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.25

only thing to say is that the antagonist was deliciously crafted and led to (a) nice plot twist(s)
obviously long but an enjoyable read, especially once things start coming together in the second half of the book

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Blood, Death, Murder, and Violence

larxene_castellan's review against another edition

challenging dark informative mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror

Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual harassment

mylittlebooklibrary's review against another edition

adventurous dark inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Hate crime, and Gore

Moderate: Injury/injury detail, Body horror, Kidnapping, and Physical abuse

m4rtt4's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark informative mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.75

I admire Dan Brown for his ability to create these kinds of page-turners full of interesting facts. I'm not a huge fan of action books or movies where everything is centered around villains and violence, but all the nerdy stuff in this book surely made up for it :)

On the other hand, I really dislike Brown's way of writing characters, everything from creating backstories interesting enough to describing them in present day and action. I mean, of course Robert Langdon is as perfect as Brown's wanted him to be (bet he created him as a perfect version of his own self), but oh god, ARE THERE MORE TO FEMALE CHARACTERS THAN THEIR BODIES? Obviously there should be, but I wouldn't recommend using Brown's books as a guide to writing women. Or, tbh, any other characters either, so very one-dimensional, stereotypical, (and even racist) he made them all (apart from Langdon ofc). Especially the assassin — his actions and overall villain-ness didn't frustrate me nowhere near as his personality was written to be.

So, overall the story was adventurous and entertaining if you just treat most of the chacters as "necessary implementers to the required actions" and ignore their personal traits. Wouldn't recommend if you dislike science and/or history. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Injury/injury detail, Medical content, Gun violence, Medical trauma, Blood, Body horror, Chronic illness, Fire/Fire injury, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Murder, Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, and Torture

Moderate: Ableism, Racism, Sexism, and Suicide

thewordsdevourer's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

a pulse-racing, unstoppable page-turner filled w/ twists and turns, interesting historical facts, info, speculation, and thought-provoking debate on science and religion and their roles in modern society, though its writing abt women does turn me off quite a bit. 620 pages of this felt like a short novella tbh; thats how engrossing the book was. i havent read a lot of thrillers to make an adequate compariaon, and idk how historically and factually accurate this book is, but as a casual reader it was pretty damn good.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Body horror, Kidnapping, and Death of parent