Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

54 reviews

onlyincursive's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-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

4.5

A wild ride from start to finish. This book is for the readers who grew up on stories about kids with powers (e.g. Animorphs, Percy Jackson) and who want the adult version. The type of book that I would recommend to everyone - if only the content warning list wasn’t so long!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Fire/Fire injury, Drug use, Animal cruelty, Toxic relationship, Suicide, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Murder, Gaslighting, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Gore, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Death, Violence, Kidnapping, Child abuse, Death of parent, Suicide attempt, Medical content, Mass/school shootings, Torture, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Addiction, Confinement, Cursing, Rape, Drug abuse, Xenophobia, Car accident, War, Toxic friendship, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Misogyny, Bullying, Classism, Mental illness, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Islamophobia, and Pregnancy

This book is hard to warn for. Be especially aware that there is torture and murder of children

(many of whom are effectively immortal and experience this torture and murder multiple times)

, as well as a lot of animal death

(including many, many dogs)

.

chalkletters's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

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

3.0

It's pure coincidence that both my book clubs picked books with 'library' in the title in the same month, and that neither of them actually spend all that much time in a library or doing any reading. Of the two (The Library at Mount Char and The Library of the Dead), this book is far more action-orientated, which is even more surprising for a book supposedly about librarians. (At least in book form; film and TV librarians are quite often action heroes!) 

Scott Hawkins plunges readers straight into Caroline's life after Father (not her biological parent) goes missing, with only brief flashbacks to provide backstory. There's a lot of darkness in both the past and present, and it's interesting to see how it has affected all of Father's adopted children. By midway through the novel, it's obvious that there is a plan being enacted, even if the details of that plan aren't given. The introduction of other perspective characters complicates things. Erwin is even more of an action star than Caroline: a literal war hero who would feel at home in Modern Warfare or could be played by Dwayne Johnson. It makes The Library at Mount Char feel like two very different books smashed together, which certainly keeps things interesting! 

While it's never exactly clear what the 'win condition' of the novel is going to be, Scott Hawkins definitely throws in a late curveball once the titular library is actually reached. Up until that point, the character arcs feel like they're moving in a particular direction. After it, everything is up in the air and the final ending is far more bleak for everyone involved than might have been anticipated. The bleakness in itself isn't necessarily bad — Steve’s ending is beautiful, in a very bittersweet kind of way — but it does feel as though the novel swerved dramatically from the track it previously seemed to be following.

Despite the lack of what I'll call 'library aesthetic', I was never bored with The Library at Mount Char. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Child abuse, Suicide, and Death

Moderate: Blood, Bullying, Sexual violence, Animal cruelty, Drug use, Violence, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Death of parent, Gun violence, and Rape

Minor: Car accident and Addiction

3martini's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Cursing, Sexual content, Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Sexual violence, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Torture, Suicide, Sexual assault, Physical abuse, Gore, Emotional abuse, Death of parent, and Child abuse

Moderate: Rape, Vomit, Drug use, and Gun violence

valjeanval's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Bizarre, bloody, and a serious page turner. A dark tale of what and why are humans with lots to say on the nature of power and vengeance. The violence and gore are too much for me at times, but still a great book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Emotional abuse, Murder, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Violence, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Suicide, Child abuse, Child death, Death, and Torture

Moderate: Sexual violence, Kidnapping, Toxic friendship, Drug use, Gaslighting, Medical content, Rape, Self harm, Confinement, Grief, Sexual assault, Vomit, Alcohol, and Gun violence

pep_puterova's review against another edition

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No

1.0

I don't know where to start...

Everyone seems to love this book and everyone says how weird this book is. I was very excited to read it. I love weird, unhinged fantasy. 

As soon as I started reading it, it was painfully obvious the book was written by a man. So now I'm cursed with the knowledge the author is a leg man.

Moreover, the book is extremely, painfully American, both in terms of tone and how it treats the outside world. Plus it is somewhat republican-coded. I would like to ascertain the whereabouts of the author on January 6th.

For a book that has SO MUCH going on, it manages to be really boring for a big part of it. There's definitely bad pacing issues, and what could have been a very interesting plot suffers.

Not a single character is even remotely likeable. Except the lions, of course, but they always feature in the most boring parts of the book.

The whole book features too much gratuitious violence, and violence towards women, and then it's excused as 'oh she needed to become who she's meant to be' and extreme violence is good, actually. 

All I can say is that I like the idea of this book, but this book is one of the worst things I've ever read. I almost DNF-ed it multiple times, but the only thing that kept me going was trying to understand why does this book have such positive reviews. I genuinely don't understand the praise it receives. It's not like with other books where I could just admit okay it's not for me, but whatever, could be someone else's thing. The praise for this book concers me.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, Sexual violence, Animal death, Torture, Murder, and Animal cruelty

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, War, and Gun violence

khezula's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

I couldn't put this down when I first read it, but it should be noted this book is dark, and goes to some dark places (see content warnings) The story does jump around time wise, which I know can be confusing. The stereotypical climax for a book does come a little early compared to the end of the book as there are still character developments and story wrap up that occurs after. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Animal death, Torture, Body horror, and Rape

soupqueen's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-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

4.5

A very slow start. I didn’t really care about Steve’s chapters to begin with, but as the story started coming together everything started feeling more interesting. The epilogue was perhaps unnecessary, but it still felt like it added a little something to the end.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, Death of parent, Child death, Cursing, Fire/Fire injury, Death, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Murder, Physical abuse, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Animal death

motherearthschild's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

5.0

I devoured this book. It is absolutely incredible. Go into it blindly. It’s a wild ride. It definitely has a lot of dark aspects but it’s balanced with great humor. I highly recommend. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Rape, Violence, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, and Murder

It’s honestly so worth it.

mochikochicken's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Murder, Violence, Gun violence, War, Animal death, Body horror, Death of parent, Suicide, Car accident, Cursing, Death, Alcohol, Blood, Medical content, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, and Fire/Fire injury

eviethebookworm's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Child death, Body horror, Violence, Vomit, Suicide, Sexual violence, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Drug abuse, Blood, Gore, Animal death, Self harm, and Rape