Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

The Ritual by Adam L.G. Nevill

16 reviews

izypup's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Grief, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal death, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Stalking, and Murder

Minor: Body shaming, Fatphobia, Physical abuse, Excrement, Islamophobia, Kidnapping, and Fire/Fire injury

emmylgrajinski's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious medium-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

4.25

The first half of this book is incredibly chilling and eerie. Was nearly late for work once because i was so engrossed. The second half, as the other reviews have said, is a little less gripping in my opinion. But even though I didn't enjoy the direction of the second half as much as the first, the writing, the atmosphere and the imagery is still incredible all the way through.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Gun violence, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Violence

Minor: Fatphobia, Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

gawdz0rz's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

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

3.5

includes a peek into some more recent parts of norwegian history. i won’t say more than that outside spoilers. 

kinda feels like the book splits into two different books like halfway through? 

author writes a little weird about women’s bodies. “he was smelling her cunt through a nose he knew to be smashed flat.” no he wasn’t. that’s not true. 

some other thoughts:

the tie-in of black metal and the 90s church burnings in norway to the characters’ backgrounds was great. and luke pointing out the conflicting beliefs (different tattoos, getting sacrificed to what was believed a pagan god on an inverted cross, etc.) showed the timeline of some people in that same scene moving between satanism and paganism (or what is now called “odinism”), sincerity not required. and then there’s showing the bigoted beliefs of some in the black metal scene—burzum, for example, being one of the bands fenris listed, was founded by varg vikernes, a nazi. and that wasn’t the only nazi band listed. 

finally, i’m not sure i like how the beast in the woods was kinda just brushed off as some random demon or “mother” or whatever, rather than something way more important to the story.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Fatphobia, Misogyny, Torture, Grief, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Animal death, Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Xenophobia, and Vomit

asmei's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Death, Gore, Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Homophobia, Vomit, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, and Alcohol

charlieeee's review against another edition

dark tense slow-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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, and Blood

Moderate: Body shaming, Confinement, Cursing, Fatphobia, Hate crime, Homophobia, Sexism, Xenophobia, Islamophobia, Religious bigotry, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Kidnapping, and Alcohol

The first part was fabulous. Some really good examinations of people growing apart; philosophy of life (for male-socialised people anyway); it was tense and had some great metaphors and other strong writing. And then part two happened where I would have sworn I was reading a completely different book altogether! The metaphors were over the top, made no sense in the context of the scene and the characters were really stereotypical - and the less about ‘Surtr’ and the constant repetition about her breasts, body and ‘smell’ of her genitalia the better. Was so disappointed by part two. So so disappointed.

And the reveal of the big beastie ‘the god’ in the woods at the end was such a let down. Everything was leading up to this point and the pay off was so disappointing - we barely get a paragraph. There’s letting your mind fill in the blanks and then there’s this.

broccoli_aesthetics's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.0

The first part in the woods is very tense and interesting. The stalking creature is damn scary and the characters are flashed out really well. Unfortunately I feel that the second part of the book falls flat:

the black metal band is honestly too stereotyped to be interesting

and I felt like it killed the mood.
The book then gets better again near the end

with moder and the white children

Overall, i still enjoyed the book quite a bit. 4/5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Violence, and Blood

Minor: Body shaming, Fatphobia, Homophobia, and Racism

seapotatohowisitalrtaken's review

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Violence, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death

caspian's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-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? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Racism, Islamophobia, and Murder

giggles692's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Fatphobia, Homophobia, Misogyny, Racism, and Sexism

cuppachaii's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad 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

3.5

The Ritual was fun! It's like Call Of The Wild had a Lovecraft-inspired fanfiction written by a guy who only wears Patagonia. While I found myself thinking about it when we were apart, the actual experience reading would sometimes drag. This might be due to the fact that I can't visualize, and Adam really leans on visuals to get his ideas across. I found myself getting turned around during fast paced sequences, and many of the scares flew over my head because of how imagery-oriented they are. Don't get me wrong, I still got some good scares in (

I shat myself when he realized Moder had been stalking behind him and Dom was long gone, for example

) especially in Adam's amazing non-visual descriptions, like the soundscape and textures of

the attic

. The characters don't develop so much as their existing dispositions are recontextualized, which I loved. Luke's anger is obviously out of place in London, but instead of just trope-ily going "but in the wild it's an  a s s e t" Adam instead constantly puts Luke in new situations where this anger can mean survival OR death. And while I absolutely loved the scares of

the body in the truck bed, or the goat legs on meemaw

you know what scares I DON'T love?? Fatphobia. Oh my gOd this book has so much pointless, distracting fatphobic moments. Several times, even during the rad climax, Adam couldn't help taking a few lines to remind us how unattractive he thought this fat person looked while fighting for their life through an ancient wood, home to long-forgotten horrors older than any gods for which we still have names, older than names at all. THERE'S MORE INTERESTING STUFF IN THIS FOREST THAN CELLULITE, FRIEND.

All in all, I enjoyed this book and think it's worth reading if you're a fan of horror. It has a lot of cool ideas, and explores themes of nature, survival, and humanity in ways I haven't seen before. For real one of the best contemporary depictions of cosmic horror, and as a former Pretentious Lovecraft Teen, I oohoohoohoo!-d at that. 

Love you bye

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Gore, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Death and Fatphobia

Minor: Homophobia