Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Salem by Stephen King

61 reviews

toastrats's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense slow-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? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Child death, Blood, and Child abuse

Moderate: Animal death, Infidelity, and Homophobia

Minor: Fire/Fire injury and Rape

mxpringle's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Torture, Murder, Body horror, Child death, Gore, Death of parent, Violence, Death, and Animal death

Moderate: Alcoholism, Car accident, Rape, Sexual assault, Alcohol, Domestic abuse, and Child abuse

11black_cats's review against another edition

dark emotional tense 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? No

4.25

Very good take on the vampire trope, quite a slow burn in terms of horror but very tense. Quite long though 😅

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, and Death of parent

Moderate: Car accident, Infidelity, Sexual content, Injury/Injury detail, Alcoholism, Animal death, Child abuse, and Domestic abuse

introverted_reads's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Blood, Gore, Car accident, Death of parent, and Death

Moderate: Alcoholism, Sexual violence, and Homophobia

Minor: Cancer

asourceoffiction's review against another edition

challenging dark tense slow-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

4.0

I love the way King creates entire communities, with fleshed out characters and history, rather than just dumping the present on us. It's so fascinating to read even the parts that aren't filled with the supernatural. If the book is about a community you can be damn sure King knew every corner of the place inside out; it teminds me of Under the Dome in that way. It adds to the tension because you know something horrifying is coming, and there's constantly something simmering under the surface while you deal with small-town gossip and secrets.

When things start to ramp up from about half way through, you can totally see the point of the slow burn until then. You've got to know all the characters just well enough to predict and dread the impending carnage.

When things do start to escalate (and it happens fast!), you can tell that making the reader informed and the victims ignorant is completely intentional; I wanted to yell at the book every time someone said "come on in" to a knock at the door, or brandished a useless gun. It made it quite fun through the tension.

I flew through the second half after savouring the first. This is definitely a classic with a proper traditional horror feel.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Child death, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Animal death

Moderate: Car accident and Rape

erafact's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Animal death, and Death

Moderate: Racial slurs, Car accident, Homophobia, Domestic abuse, Rape, and Cannibalism

Minor: Alcohol, Blood, Bullying, Excrement, Stalking, Abandonment, Fire/Fire injury, Violence, Animal cruelty, Physical abuse, and Alcoholism

Set in a rural area in the 70's, lots of slurs thrown around. A man catches his wife cheating, then beats her and rapes her over the next couple (?) Weeks. Several children die. A dog is killed but not graphically, we just find its body.

risemini's review against another edition

adventurous 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? No

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Death of parent, Gore, Murder, Sexual content, Death, Alcoholism, Animal death, Child death, Sexual violence, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Blood, Grief, and Violence

cass_lit's review against another edition

3.5

I would like to have a talk with Stephen King’s editor, because I have suggestions. Cut the slurs. Cut any sexual comment about an underage girl (and maybe even the ones about adult women — this man called breasts “jahoovies” MULTIPLE TIMES). Cut ~150 pages because this does not need to be as long as it is. 

I felt about this the same I do about most Stephen King books. The bones are there and so good; he’s unmatched in his breadth of horror plot lines. But my god is this long book filled with writing that you’d think was intentionally trying to alienate women, queer readers, people of color… basically, Stephen King writes for straight, white, cis men and the rest of us just take what we can get from it. I loved the vampires and the haunted mansion on the hill, just hated all the characters and the way they talked and the way they were talked about. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Homophobia, Violence, Child abuse, and Blood

Moderate: Animal death, Fatphobia, Rape, and Sexual assault

Minor: Transphobia and Pedophilia

draven_deathcrush's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

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

2.5

I love Stephen King, his writing really works for me and I usually love his stories, but I just hate vampires. That's literally the only reason I didn't like this book. The writing was amazing, and I like how descriptive it is, but I'm just not a fan of vampires.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Child death, and Child abuse

Moderate: Rape and Animal death

Minor: Sexual content

desireewoodwhite's review against another edition

adventurous dark informative mysterious slow-paced

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

3.5

It’s not scary (which I appreciate as I get spooked easily). But it has no business being that long … the story drags for far too long, and I started to lose all interest right when the things got to the “main” parts.

 But still great autumn/vampire vibes 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Animal cruelty, and Rape