Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

42 reviews

kaanda's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Extremely dark in so many ways, but fantastic at holding tension. Truly horrific.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child death, Death, Fatphobia, Gore, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury

mccalab's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, and Blood

Minor: Trafficking

gatsbyonabudget's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

One of the best horror books I have ever read. It’s both scary and incredibly sad. A morbid coming of age story 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Pedophilia, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

cantfindmybookmark's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional slow-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Body horror, Bullying, Gore, Pedophilia, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Animal death, Sexual assault, and Torture

sargasso_c's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.5

The book starts pretty strong, lags a bit in the middle, and definitely picks up towards the end. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Gore, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Pedophilia, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Vomit, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Alcoholism, Fatphobia, Mental illness, Excrement, and Alcohol

sphinx_'s review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

A 3.5 or 4 stars.

With so many characters and happenings in this book, I tried my best to think what is the overarching theme. The best I have is that everyone has their own circumstances, some way grimmer than others. And while the lives of the characters here tangle in a mess, they end up the cause and effect, the reason for someone's pain, etc. - all of their actions stem from how they were taught around them and how their lives had been. They try to live comfortably or move forward in a way they know. For example,

Johnny (unfortunately so) follows his brother's footsteps because he looks up to the latter.

Lacke buries all what-could-bes through alcohol until it was too late.

Tommy, probably not over his father's death, can't agree with his mother having a new relationship so he thinks of rebelling or stripping himself away from the household instead.

Virginia... deserved so much more.

The list can go on, and the characters makes so much sense because of their narratives and backstories presented. (Except for Hakan, lol. Fuck him.)

My heart goes out for many characters but mostly for Eli and Oskar. Two kids who only want to find connection and play, just like any kids should without having to be bullied. Without having to be chasen around. With all the "flaws" the people see around them, they don't see it as such. They appreciate each other which is wholesome af in a very dark story as this.

There were so many parts that were difficult to read. I abhor the bullying (and all unspeakable things. iykyk) but what made me stay with the story are truly the characters. The characters, man. The characters.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Gore, Homophobia, Violence, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Rape

__luiza's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

3.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Gore, Sexual assault, and Blood

elegantmechanic's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Has its five stars moments but the sexual violence was too much for me (I know, it's horror, but everyone has their lines they can't cross) and my overall feeling was just like "This isn't as good as the film, I can see why they made the changes they did in adaptation".

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Sexual violence

Moderate: Child abuse

jbcrue's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad 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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

kaiyakaiyo's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense 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

0.5

If you’re into “vampire myth but make it extremely, graphically pedophilic” then this book is for you! I, however, abhorred everything about this. 

Scene after scene of child molestation and frankly unnecessary harm on women and children… the few women characters were there only to be extremely bad mothers or sexual objects… though to be fair, ALL of the characters were extremely unrealistic fucked up caricatures. 

This book was far too long (because of all the pedophilic content shoved in) and had a lot of strange subplots that all came together eventually with no real satisfaction. The only actually interesting thing about this book was how it dealt with Eli’s gender; disgusting castration scene aside, this book was surprisingly faithful to the inherent genderqueer-ness that has existed in vampire myth since the beginning. I’m sure someone could write or has written really interesting papers on gender in this. That’s the only nice thing I can say though, otherwise this was a moderately interesting vampire myth idea squandered on gratuitous trauma porn. What is it with Swedes and pedophilia??? 

Nasty book, the author should be jailed

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Blood, and Vomit