Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Hunted by Darcy Coates

13 reviews

kaneebli's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Violence, Grief, and Stalking

Moderate: Ableism, Alcoholism, Gore, Suicide, Murder, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Drug abuse and Miscarriage

randeerebecca's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious 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? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

coco78337's review against another edition

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? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Not where I was expecting this book to go based on the summary, but good overall. (Edit: Originally rated this 3 stars. Then I read a book that’s similar… this is actually 5 star. I should have never doubted you Darcy I’m so sorry)

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Child death, Gun violence, Blood, Stalking, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

lindzboots's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.5

An excellent thriller! This book read like a slasher film set deep in the green labyrinth of a national orest put on paper. It was well-written and the audiobook reader, Angela Dawe, put on a truly impeccable performance. Written entirely in third person, we got to experience the perspectives of several different characters, and each one had a wonderfully unique voice. It was thrilling, excruciating, gut-wrenching, and terrifying at times. An excellent tale about determination, love, and humanity’s insistence on survival.

Some highlights for me: the eerie atmosphere of the ominous forest really shone through to the point where I was a little spooked reading it at night; being inside Todd’s head was excruciating in its own right and I ate up every second of it; the combinations of spooky forest, cryptid horror, and serial killer slasher hit all the right buttons; and though I’d suspected the answer to the mystery way, way earlier, the end truly surprised and delighted me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Body horror, Confinement, Death, Gore, Torture, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, and Murder

Moderate: Gun violence and Mental illness

Minor: Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, and Pregnancy

pregnancy loss

cormoranlucreade's review against another edition

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Torture, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Bullying and Violence

Minor: Child death, Blood, Grief, and Stalking

nicoletiff's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad 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? It's complicated

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Murder, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

gamerreaper13's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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? It's complicated

4.75

This book hits the ground running and does not slow down at all. 

Hunted had me on the edge of my seat the whole way along. Every twist was unexpected and every perspective was a new adventure. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Blood, and Grief

omair's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

1.75

Hunted delivers in bunches what it promises, but does it do so at the cost of having the depth to be truly memorable?

Hunted is an easy read, with short chapters that change scenes at a frantic pace. Mixed with the extremely generic world - more on this in a moment - everything feels foggy or blurry. If this is by design, as I'm choosing to believe to credit author Darcy Coates, then it meets the mood at every turn of the page. If you don't believe this to be intentional, well, then the cracks in the story will likely prove to be too great.

From the first paragraphs, Hunted really imparts a vision of a horror B-movie, something made to be straight to streaming. The character and story tropes are laid on thick

and you realize there's a twist coming that you're not given enough clues to solve with certainty... well, unless you know the tropes already

One of our main POVs

is a group of post-teenagers that truly had me thinking of a knock-off Scooby-Doo quartet, just Shaggy replaced with a stereotypical jock. It doesn't help that they literally get in a van that clinched the Mystery Machine feel to me.

And with that, the mystery is afoot... except that it's not really a mystery at all. Pay just a bit of attention, and you quickly

begin to expect a masked villain at play.

Coates keeps the shrouded sense of it all pretty well though, and the story is never so dull that you're tempted to put it down and walk away.

But what it does lack is anything to really draw you in, to get lost amidst the details or to feel transported into its world. Nothing feels particularly vibrant or lived in. Frankly, I found myself questioning when and where the story takes place. It may as well be set in an alternate USA where they did adopt the metric system and Zuckerberg's rise stalled well into the 2010's.

In the end, I did not hate reading it, nor did I particularly enjoy it, but - most telling for me - I'm not even sure I'll remember having done so a month from now. As such, it's hard for me to recommend this to others, but maybe it'll be a guilty pleasure read for you. I finished it over the course of two nights, so could be worth for anyone wanting to sneak in a title while waiting for a hold on something else.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Gun violence, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Grief, Stalking, Murder, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child death

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Medical content, and Classism

katkinslee's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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? No

3.75

It was definitely very tense. It was a bit more of a crime thriller than a horror books which is an interesting change of pace for Coates. I enjoyed the twist even though I saw it coming towards the end. 
I didn't really like any of the characters although

I was sad to see Anna die because she was the probably the least annoying

Todd was the biggest idiot and it was amusing to hear his chapters. 
All in all it was a decent read and very atmospheric but definitely not my favourite Coates book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Suicide, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

witchy_reads's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Body horror, Death, Gore, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Stalking, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Gun violence, Miscarriage, Vomit, and Grief

Minor: Pregnancy