Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi

8 reviews

laurareads87's review

challenging dark sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.0

This is a hard book to review. There are elements of this that I really liked and think were very effective, and there were other elements that didn’t work so well. 

The multi-POV structure including the POV of not only human characters but also a house was really interesting, but the lack of clarity around each perspective shift was not – having to figure out who was narrating was more irritating than anything. There are a lot of hints and allusions to various possibilities with no concrete confirmations provided, and this is really unsettling (in a good way); however, I’m left feeling at the end like there just wasn’t enough plot to make this work. Conceptually, there is a lot going on (again, in a good way) but as a horror novel, I didn’t find this particularly frightening. 

Oyeyemi’s writing is beautiful, and the whole book feels very eerie and atmospheric. I would 100% read something else by Oyeyemi even though this book didn’t really work for me. 

Content warnings: blood, body horror, injury detail, suicidal thoughts, mental illness, death, death of a parent, disordered eating, racism, xenophobia, animal cruelty 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Xenophobia, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Death and Death of parent

perfectcupoftea's review against another edition

challenging emotional mysterious slow-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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder and Hate crime

Moderate: Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Chronic illness, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Abandonment

Minor: Animal cruelty and Incest

chelseareads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

3.75

Yikes. I'm not used to reading this type of book and it was a lot. But so well-written and carefully planned. The narration was excellent and the pacing was good.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Gore, Mental illness, Racism, and Blood

Moderate: Death, Cannibalism, and Death of parent

Minor: Animal cruelty

pinkalpaca's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad fast-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder

Moderate: Animal cruelty

Minor: Death of parent

talonsontypewriters's review

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

valent1ne's review against another edition

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder

Moderate: Incest and Cannibalism

Minor: Animal cruelty

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

j_squaredd's review against another edition

challenging dark medium-paced

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

3.75

I would likely rate this much higher if I were in a different headspace when I had read it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Gore, and Mental illness

Moderate: Animal cruelty and Death of parent