Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill

22 reviews

stephanieluxton's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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

4.25

This book is about a woman who has the power of finding things and a scary man who kidnaps children to take them to Christmasland. Chaos ensues.

Things I liked: 

• The characters were great and felt realistic. We had time to get to know and love them before anything seriously terrible happened to them.
• The magical realism elements were really fun.
• There was a lot of tension! I genuinely didn't know what direction the story was going to go in. There wasn't a dramatic twist or anything, but I didn't predict the ending.
• The villains were scary. I didn't feel very scared when reading this book, but the first encounter the MC has with the villain is very stressful and tense.
• It all felt fairly original.
• We weren't overloaded with exposition. We slowly figured out what was going on as the characters did. I appreciated this!

Things I didn't like:

• As can be expected in a horror novel, theres a few upsetting/disturbing scenes.
• I get a little flustered in books when people have serious injuries and can just carry on like they're not in an absolute world of pain. Again, this seems typical in horror/thriller novels.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Mental illness, Self harm, Violence, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Stalking, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Sexual assault, Blood, Medical content, Car accident, and Alcohol

Minor: Cancer and Incest

Animal death:

a dog gets hit by a car and then it's head smashed in with a hammer. Very upsetting scene.

Child Abuse: Not sure if what happens to the kids exactly counts as child abuse, but they go through some stuff. Nothing sexual though! Confinement: There's a few instances of characters being trapped in small-ish spaces. Death: Multiple deaths occur. Some are witnessed and some are talked about. Death of a parent:

Our main characters mom dies of illness. Her father gets shot by police trying to help her escape a situation. Many parents of the children taken to christmasland are killed but we mostly hear about it after the fact rather than witness it.

Fire/fire injury:

Our main character gets locked in a room and the building is set on fire. Another character gets sprayed with gasoline and set ablaze. Another character burns his hand on a tail pipe. The MC burns down her house at one point.

Gun Violence: Some people get shot. Injury/Violence: Many injuries and violence. They aren't described in excruciating detail. This isn't a splatterpunk. Kidnapping: Charlie Manx kidnaps kids to take to christmasland and kidnaps our protagonists son. Mental illness/gaslighting:

Our main character spends a lot of time in mental facilities because no one else can hear the dead kids from christmasland calling her on he phone and she struggles to understand if her "powers" are real or not.

Misogyny: Our villains, especially the gas mask man, don't respect women very much. Stalking:

The villains kill the neighbours so they can stalk the MC.

Self harm:

One characters power works best if she's experiencing pain so she burns herself with cigarettes.

Drugs/Alcohol:

Some discussion of drugs and homelessness. Our MC takes an oxy at one point. A kid is drunk at one point. The gasmask man drugs his victims and children.

Medical content: There's some discussion of an autopsy. Car Accident:

There's a car accident involving a character and a child at one point. There's also a motorcycle crash.

Blood: Moderate amount. Cursing: ome swearing but it's not every other word. Rape/Sexual Assault/Incest: This is more discussed than witnessed by the reader.

The gasmask man rapes the parents of kidnapped kids before he kills them. There's one upsetting part in which he tells another characters about forcing a dad to perform sexual acts on him. That part felt particularly upsetting. There's also an attempted rape of the MC but she outsmarts him. It is revealed early on that the gasmask man raped and killed his own mother.

Cancer: It's stated that someone died of cancer.

gafeni817's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-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? Yes

3.5

NOS4A2 was good but at some points was too drawn out. I enjoyed the story itself, however, I don’t believe I will be reading any other books by this author.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Drug use, Rape, Violence, and Murder

hemingwaysdick's review against another edition

2.5/5 DNF @ 72% - I wanted to like Joe Hill, this is the 1st book Ive ever read by him. This book had a fun initial concept, I love supernatural stuff with some random thing thrown in. The first half of the book was relatively interesting, then it just devolved. The side characters introduced after the 1st half were so uninteresting that I couldn't bring myself to give a s*** about them. And then worst: it just got boring. I rarely dont finsh a book, and I just couldn't pick it up again. Im only 200 pages away from the end and its going to back to the used book store 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death and Rape

Moderate: Drug use

kingsamong's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Drug use, Rape, and Murder

savanapavlak's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-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? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body shaming, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Rape, Kidnapping, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Body horror, Child death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Sexual violence, Stalking, and Abandonment

bruinrocks's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious sad 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

4.0

This novel felt like a mix between The Shining and Doctor Sleep, it follows Vic McQueen as she struggles with the trauma of being attacked by Charlie Manx when she was a kid. I found this novel to be much more enjoyable after I read the prequel comic book Wraith. There is a near constant dread throughout the whole novel, never knowing when Manx will appear to wreck havoc on Vic and her families lives. There is some really strong character development and world building. Christmasland, a place that sounds like it should be magical and wonderful, is actually a horrifying location that keeps the fear at a maximum. With a middle section that drags a little the ending definitely amps it up to a 10 for the last stretch becoming very action packed, and explosive. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Child death, and Mental illness

Minor: Drug use and Sexual violence

melodyseestrees's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

1.75

Caution: There are animal deaths that get way more detail and time than the final deaths in the book.

You don't even see Vic die on page you just know she's gravely injured and then her son recollects that she died. Manx simply gets an engine to his chest. Hooper the dog gets hammered to near death and then ran over.

This book isn't so much horror as gore porn. It was a drag to push through from about 61% of the book on. One of the only fat characters gets a "happy ending" only once he becomes thin and goes to finish something saying he was told to when this wasn't ever shown to the reader.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Body shaming, Drug abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual violence, Kidnapping, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Fatphobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Self harm, Antisemitism, and Fire/Fire injury

alohiel's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, and Death of parent

Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

Minor: Drug use

mattotheratto's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Fatphobia, and Death of parent

Minor: Infidelity

tieflingkisser's review against another edition

dark reflective medium-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Fatphobia, Mental illness, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Kidnapping, Car accident, and Death of parent

Moderate: Addiction, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, and Pedophilia