Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Apocalipsa by Stephen King

85 reviews

dezzella'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? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.0

Read this for my dad. He really liked it and was excited for me to read it... welp it wasn't for me. This was also my first Stephen King novel I believe.

It was an extremely slow paced (which i expected, that alone wouldn't have given it this rating) dystopian novel starting with a pandemic that wipes out a lot of humanity. I read the version that was a 47 hour audiobook and it felt like it was just dragging on. There were some moments I didn't get/ or were confusing to me. And some of the character motivations were weird. 

My biggest gripe are the characters. I didn't really feel attached to any of them, and there were so many that it was honestly hard to keep track. Also, there is a lot of dated terminology and slurs that are now considered inappropriate and cruel (n word for black characters and r word for mental disabilities for example, and they are used repeatedly. I've confirmed from a few other friends that this is a trend with King's writing). 

The latter part of the books starts to bring more Christian references which sometimes just felt out of place. I think this would have been a lot cooler if the problems were more focused around the plague than the supernatural elements at the end. Honestly concept-wise this book sounded like a good time, it's a shame it let me down.


Spoiler thoughts, referencing specific scenes/scenarios including the ending:

How Tom was treated in this book bothered me sometimes. Especially when they were using him for a spying mission. As he has a mental disability, the other characters were using this to their advantage.  It just rubbed me the wrong way and I didn't like it. 

The ending was a bit strange. Not going to say I expected a nuke to go off or for the LITERAL hand of God to appear and pluck the bad guy away. That was certainly a choice. 

I felt like the summary was a bit misleading, because while we had our bad guy/ dark lord/ prince of evil and this older lady who was "good". There wasn't a lot done with the good side, she ends up dying and the characters are really facing against the bad guy who is bad.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Pregnancy, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, and Injury/Injury detail

n0e11e0000's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual violence, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

sir_rosalind's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Rape, Violence, and Murder

Minor: Child death, Misogyny, Slavery, Suicide, and Kidnapping

reading_in_maine's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, and Pandemic/Epidemic

thebookishrose's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

The Stand is one of those books that sinks it's teeth in deep and takes hold. The characters are super interesting and even the bad guys are often lovable. It's a book that makes you think. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Sexual assault, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Cannibalism, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , War, and Pandemic/Epidemic

cameoutbustin's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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

4.75

wish it was longer and the ending was a little bit better, but overall the book was worth the read and i thoroughly enjoyed it

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Suicide, and Violence

ladymaiq's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Death, Gore, Rape, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Drug use, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Abandonment

lilashelly's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

I generally don't read Stephen King. I don't like his writing style, I find it to be very pretentious. But a friend at work told me this is his favorite horror book so I gave it a shot. I actually did enjoy the plot, but there's so much that feels so dragged out and a lot of filler. And I get that it was written in 1990, but a lot of the racial terms felt unnecessarily added.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Trafficking, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

tomuytt's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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? It's complicated

2.5

I’m a Stephen King fan, but this story is just too long. Surprisingly, the end is somewhat of an afterthought, rushed through as if King ran out of paper. Or ideas.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Pandemic/Epidemic

asourceoffiction's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad tense slow-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

It's hard to put a book like this into words. I tried separating the sections to work out how I felt about each, but without the threads connecting them all they're not as special. So I'll settle for one (probably over-used) word: epic.

I already knew King was a brilliant writer. But for something as grand as this he really let loose. It's a disaster story, a post-apocalyptic dystopia, a journey, the rebuilding of society, war, religion and literally the entire question of good versus evil.

Flagg's presence becomes more insidious as the book goes on, but by then the characters I loved were so in my head that I just had blind faith in them. Even those who don't survive (and my goodness there are a lot of them - no one is safe) seem to leave some part of themselves behind, the connections between them run so deep.

And it was the characters that I really loved. Frannie, Stu, Nick, wonderful Tom Cullen, Larry, Glen and Kojak. People on Flagg's side like Lloyd and poor Trash Can Man were also brilliantly wrought and complex. Even someone who is only relevant to a single chapter has a full and rich back story. This will stay with me a long time. 

M-O-O-N, that spells masterpiece.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child death, Death, Mental illness, Suicide, Terminal illness, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic