Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

White Is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi

9 reviews

lateromantic's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense fast-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? Yes

5.0

This book is fantastic!! It's poetry, it's dark academia, it's halloweeny, it's across multiple cultures, it's impossible to pin down. Loved it. Do not read if you can't take food / eating / eating disorder content though.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Eating disorder, Mental illness, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Death, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, and Death of parent

Minor: Drug use, Hate crime, Sexual content, Suicide, Violence, and Alcohol

charlieeee's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder and Mental illness

Moderate: Racism, Xenophobia, and Death of parent

Minor: Suicide, Vomit, and Toxic friendship

talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Eating disorder, Gore, Racism, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Death, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Grief, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal cruelty, Drug use, Homophobia, Incest, Sexual content, Lesbophobia, Alcohol, and War

antimony's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

3.5

three point five. the writing was really good but gah i was so so confused. i don't think i ever fully knew what was going on. it took me so long to get into the swing of the changing povs and then as soon as i had we got ore's and i was confused again. the end was good as well, though the lack of a plot up until ore got introduced left me feeling very stagnant for most of the book. i don't think that the jacket summary adequately conveys much.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Racism, Suicide, and Xenophobia

miyothecat's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Mental illness, Grief, and Death of parent

Minor: Animal cruelty, Incest, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide

headachesince03's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Body shaming, Death, Eating disorder, Gore, Hate crime, Mental illness, Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Lesbophobia, and Dysphoria

Moderate: Gore, Racism, Sexual content, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Suicide attempt, Lesbophobia, and War

Minor: Bullying, Confinement, Cursing, Drug use, Gun violence, Incest, Xenophobia, Vomit, Mass/school shootings, Stalking, Murder, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

hownoveljo's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Eating disorder, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Terminal illness

savvylit's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad slow-paced

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

3.5

I loved a lot of aspects of this story. It's a gothic haunted house tale with loads of magical realism and critical social commentary. It has multiple POVs and one of them is the house itself. Not to mention that some of the sentences that Oyeyemi has crafted are truly exquisite.

But overall I felt like Oyeyemi was creatively overextending herself in this story. Too many issues were addressed but not thoroughly explored. Too many creepy things hinted at but not quite revealed. I wished that the novel had been a little more polished.

The story overall was a very bleak slice of life, primarily focusing on Miranda. Which is unfortunate because I didn't like Miranda. Miranda is a bit of a two-dimensional cliche of a mentally ill young woman. Also, I really loved that one of the narrators was the house, but I didn't feel like we heard enough from their perspective.

Ultimately, I had a lot of questions throughout the story that I felt were never answered. And not in a good, ambiguous ending way. More like a "why did the thread of this story get dropped so quickly" kinda way. All of our narrators are unreliable but the true story is never really revealed.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Suicide, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Death of parent

morgiah's review against another edition

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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Mental illness

Moderate: Suicide and Blood