Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby

26 reviews

keeparas's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

This book was very well written. The descriptions of people, places, and things jumped off the page. The topic is a very raw and real problem in our society today and the story was told authentically. There were some specifically placed comedic quotes to break up the heaviness. It was a great book I'm interested in other books by this author. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Deadnaming, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Kidnapping, Grief, Car accident, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

jwatson9030's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Blood, Antisemitism, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

killmoore_'s review against another edition

dark emotional 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

5.0

Razorblade Tears was perfect in every way. Tons of very heavy content and gore, but so beautifully written it was like watching a movie. I'll be thinking of this story for years to come. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Body shaming, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Terminal illness, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Car accident, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Outing, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

rwgabbard's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cancer, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Terminal illness, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Outing, Cultural appropriation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

cadence99's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

3.5

I really wanted to like this more than I did as it came highly recommended, but unfortunately it wasn’t a runaway hit for me. A story of two fathers, brought together in their quest for vegance after the murder of their sons. Throughout, both grapple with how their homophobia towards their sons destroyed their relationship. I liked the fast paced, whodunnit aspects of this novel but did struggle a bit with the intense graphic nature of it. If you have a weak stomach, this book likely won’t go over super well. Our characters are as morally grey as you can get, stopping at nothing to attain their own version of justice. I think there is a conversation to be had here about how the only way these characters were able to accept their sons was at the cost of their lives. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Cancer, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Deadnaming, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Terminal illness, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Lesbophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

itsame_dio's review against another edition

dark emotional sad 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

3.5

It’s not bad it has some funny lines but it’s very predictable and so I felt like it was a slog to get through. If you don’t mind fridging and like old man action movies (John Wick, The Equalizer etc) then it’s good. Cosby seems to understand (or make an honest effort to understand) the trials and tribulations of Queer people not just Black CisHet men. 

I liked the ending tho, it was very touching. 

I don’t really like the narrator. He has a perfect serious deep black man voice but anything else??? Nope

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Racism, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, and Murder

kccool12255's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

This is genuinely the worst book I've ever read. The writing is horrible, with some of the stupidest lines I've read in my entire life. There were several times I had to put this book down, sigh deeply, and convince myself to pick it up again and keep going. The characters are loveable, I SUPPOSE, because even THAT'S a stretch, but it WAS sad at the end when [REDACTED] died. 

Some of my PERSONAL favorite lines from this book (*cue eye rolls and constant head banging*):

"His chest was tighter than a virgin's p***y." 
"Wound up tighter than a godd***ed duck's a**." 
"I'm gonna tear off your d**k and make you eat it." 

That's not even HALF of the stupid analogies that this book is FILLED TO THE BRIM with. It was FULL of them in the beginning, and then there would be a lull for a few pages where you would be like, "Oh, okay, these analogies are decent. Maybe we're done with-" AND THEN IT WOULD SMACK YOU IN THE FACE. That was the process of reading this book, which by the way, took 11 DAYS, which is WAY too long to spend on a book that sucks as much as this one. Although one of my FAVORITE things from this book (*mocking voice*) is just how even though both of the main characters are grieving their sons' deaths, they show absolutely NO EMPATHY for anyone else. 

"Mya wailed. He [Ike] flinched when she spoke. It was like hearing a rabbit scream in a trap." 
"Buddy Lee had felt a firmer grip from his grandmother on her deathbed." 

This book reads like an edgy 14-year-old's fanfiction on Wattpad. Maybe it's because of all the cursing, or just the writing in general, but it's horrible. I mean, there were SOME good lines, but the quality of the bad lines is just too horrendous for the book to be considered good. 

"Just because I don't wanna talk about it doesn't mean I want to forget about it. It reminds me of why I don't ever wanna go back." 
"You let an animal know you're afraid of it and it loses all respect for you. Men might walk on two legs but they were the most vicious animals of all."
"When the people you love are gone, it's the things they've touched that keep them alive in your mind. They become anchors that help you keep their memory from drifting away." 
"He knew what a killer looked like. He saw one in the mirror every day." 
"There was no turning back. There was no path that led anywhere down a long road as dark as your first night in hell and paved all along the way with bad intentions." 

But the problem with this is that you have lines like that sprinkled every few pages, and you start to think, "Maybe this book will start to get better," and then NOPE, we get lines like these: 

"You always felt like you were on the edge of some imaginary precipice...if you were an ex-con, it felt like the precipice was covered in bacon grease." 
"The powerlifter had sweat stains spreading down from his armpits that vaguely resembled maps of England and Ireland respectively." 

Both of those above quotes came from THE FIRST PAGE. THE TONE SETTER FOR THE ENTIRE BOOK. THIS BOOK ISN'T EVEN A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER, WHICH SHOULD'VE BEEN A RED FLAG FROM THE GET-GO. 

I'm assuming that these FEW good lines, the moderately good character development, and the way this novel deals heavily with grief, outweighed all of the stupid things for people, because this is the only reason I can give for this book having an average FOUR STARS. FOUR. STARS. IT'S NOT OKAY. I saw a review that said "If you don't like metaphors or similes, this book isn't for you," but that's not true, either, because there was a SPRINKLING of good analogies throughout, it just was overshadowed by all of the STUPID ones ONE PAGE LATER. It's not that we don't like analogies, it's that the author uses STUPID ones. 

In conclusion, because there's a life lesson to be learned here, never buy a book that you saw a girl reading on a plane, because she might be a freak (or not, I don't know her). To the girl who I saw reading this book on that plane, I'm so sorry you had to suffer through this. I could blame you for my suffering, but I won't because I did this to myself. You are not to blame. 

0 stars. I need to be recompensed for this. I should get an award for getting through this book, because I literally wanted to pluck out my eyeballs the entire time. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Violence, Grief, and Murder

Moderate: Alcoholism, Confinement, Gore, Hate crime, Infidelity, Racial slurs, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Blood, Death of parent, Cultural appropriation, Alcohol, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Cancer, Child abuse, Deadnaming, Domestic abuse, Sexual content, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Car accident, and Abandonment

axel_p's review

emotional reflective 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

3.0

It was a bit slow at the start.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Homophobia, Racial slurs, Racism, and Transphobia

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Deadnaming, Hate crime, Terminal illness, Kidnapping, Grief, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Abandonment

power0911's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This book was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!!! S. A. COSBY is an outstanding author.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Biphobia, Body horror, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Car accident, and Murder

a_sprinkling_of_books's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Racism, Blood, Car accident, Murder, and Classism