Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun by Guillermo del Toro, Cornelia Funke

3 reviews

kaziaroo's review

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

2.5

I'm going to put this one down as "not for me". The fairytale style of writing grated on and frustrated me, as I constantly wanted more detail and depth but instead the narrative just glossed over descriptions and interspersed them with pretty platitudes. It felt like the author's only input in adapting the film for the page was to explain all the metaphors and leave nothing to the reader to deduce by themselves – for example: "The music Vidal listened to was playful and strangely different from the razor and the boots. It gave away that cruelty and death were a dance for him" (p. 56). It was as if the author thought they were writing for a child and needed to explain everything, but at the same time the book showed scenes of torture and death that are definitely not suitable for children.

The adult characters were well drawn but mostly one-dimensional. Oddly, the realistic scenes with Vidal and Carmen were much more impactful than the fantastical scenes with the Faun and the Pale Man. I've only seen clips of the film it's inspired by but I get the impression that the fantasy scenes that would have been chilling or even scary in the film were almost boring in the book. 

I went in not knowing much about either the book or film and wasn't expecting so much direct portrayal of real-life war and fascism; judging from the cover (which has an image of Ofelia serenely hugging the Faun), I was expecting the fantasy to be more important to the main story rather than a series of possibly-imagined side quests that distract Ofelia from the awful events of her wartime life. I almost feel like the book shouldn't really be shelved in the fantasy section for that reason.

Overall, I was disappointed by this and would have DNFed if it had been any longer.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Drug use, Genocide, Gore, Miscarriage, and War

Minor: Rape and Alcohol

xiggy's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: War

Minor: Drug use, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

naiu_cs's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.0

While I really enjoyed this book, because it was indeed a very exciting anf yet easy read, I do not think that it is actually suited for the targeted age group.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Violence, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Misogyny, Sexism, Torture, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, Pregnancy, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Body horror, Child abuse, Drug use, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, and Alcohol