Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'

Hell Is a World Without You by Jason Kirk

4 reviews

jasonkylebates's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful inspiring fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Alcoholism, and Death of parent

jacobclark's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective sad 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

4.75

Stellar portrait of a youth group era a decade before I was a part of one. The prose is shockingly good even being chock-full of countless Christian subculture references. It runs the gamut of emotions and hits so many interesting beats that if you heard them would seem cliched — but if you read them, they feel so fleshed out and real. Every motivation of every character of every walk of life is fully realized: every character is three-dimensional. I don’t know how many people I know working in a church that would appreciate this book, but there are dozens of us and we should all read this one. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Religious bigotry, and Death of parent

Moderate: Sexual content, Grief, Car accident, Toxic friendship, Homophobia, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Misogyny, Body shaming, Suicidal thoughts, Sexism, and Self harm

Minor: War, Abortion, Miscarriage, Outing, Islamophobia, Alcohol, and Drug use

Broadly speaking, because of the subject matter and setting in an American evangelical church youth group culture in the early 2000s none of the content is very shocking on its face. If you’ve been through that setting and have past trauma this could be either a liberating or suffocating read depending on your healing process. The worst part comes toward the end of the novel with a section where a youth pastor replicates the often-told story of people with guns coming into a church to scare kids into not denying their faith.

This youth pastor uses his younger brother as an example and threatens reuniting him with their dad in hell. The gun goes off after a scuffle and doesn’t kill the younger brother but does hospitalize him with non-threatening injuries.

The main character’s father’s death in a car accident is referred to a lot as a pivotal moment in his life and it is often discussed as to whether or not it was a suicide or under the influence.

gdavis254's review against another edition

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

4.0

A little heavy-handed but overall excellent and very memorable 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Suicide, Sexual harassment, Religious bigotry, Misogyny, Mental illness, Body shaming, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Drug use, Death of parent, Outing, Homophobia, Sexism, Gun violence, Alcoholism, War, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Physical abuse, Racism, and Car accident

afternoon_sunshowers's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful reflective slow-paced

5.0

Finishing a book with tears in your eyes, you KNOW it was done well. The empathy doesn’t so much leap off the page as quietly underpinning the entire book.

Isaac’s coming of age story is both foreign and relatable. I grew up in a church nothing like his but some parts rang so true and I hadn’t thought of in more than a decade. And the beats of life in the early 2000s were dead on. 

His struggles, his inner monologue conversations, REGRET, sorry…it was all just so real. So believable. 

I’m so glad I’ve followed Jason for years because I never would have picked this book up but I’m so glad I did. A story of an evangelical upbringing and subsequent questioning of the faith could have been so heavy handed and full of caricatures, but this book shines by showing the humanity even in people you just fundamentally cannot understand in some circumstances but deeply relate to in others. 

I can’t wait to reread and quite possibly annotate a book for the first time. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Homophobia, Gun violence, and Death of parent