Reviews tagging 'Blood'

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill

16 reviews

papayapuffin's review against another edition

adventurous 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? Yes

4.0

This was my first book I've read by Joe Hill and it was quite good. I think there were some unnecessary horror tropes that the story could have been fine without and I wasn't thrilled with the blatant fatphobia surrounding Louis Carmody, but overall I enjoyed it and would read it again. I didn't know that the author was the son of Stephen King until after I read the book but it makes sense as there are several references to Stephen King books that I was surprised he was allowed to put in the story. Hill's writing style is also a bit similar to King's but you can tell he made it his own. I thought the characters were decent and there were a couple quotes that I'll probably be bookmarking because they were genuinely very good and insightful. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Violence, Sexual assault, and Blood

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury and Fatphobia

Minor: Animal death and Adult/minor relationship

pancakes4all's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

2.0

While this book did something new with vampires, its plot seemed to limp towards what turned out to be a pretty predictable end.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Cursing, Kidnapping, Child abuse, and Violence

locke_reads's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Animal death, Child abuse, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, Torture, Addiction, Islamophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Drug use, Alcohol, Fatphobia, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Car accident, Death of parent, Drug abuse, and Murder

Moderate: Animal death, Rape, Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Medical content

Minor: Vomit

ptoridactyl30's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Cursing, Blood, Sexism, Death of parent, Kidnapping, Pedophilia, Child death, Death, and Violence

Moderate: Body horror, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Drug use, Blood, and Drug abuse

Minor: Abandonment

melchncookies's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Animal death, Blood, Torture, Addiction, Alcohol, Body horror, Rape, Alcoholism, Violence, Sexual violence, and Abandonment

Moderate: Confinement, Death of parent, Murder, Fatphobia, Cursing, Drug abuse, Grief, Police brutality, and Gun violence

Minor: Cancer, Sexual content, Vomit, Toxic relationship, and Misogyny

wrensreadingroom's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, Mental illness, Murder, Abandonment, Alcohol, Bullying, Car accident, Grief, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Alcoholism, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Sexual violence, Blood, Body horror, Body shaming, Child abuse, Excrement, Medical content, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, and Vomit

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

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

Minor: Incest and Cancer

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.

livbarry's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny fast-paced

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

3.0

NOS4A2 wasn’t without its flaws; the blatant misogyny of the antagonists not having any direct connection to the story besides making the antagonists more dislikable REALLY bugged me, as did the blatant fatphobia.

I can’t say that I didn’t have a fun time reading this, though. The great thing about the book’s length is that it’s so dense that it’s easy to forget about the flaws until they pop up again. Its length intimidated me, but I whipped through it SO quickly. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body shaming, Death, Fatphobia, and Grief

Moderate: Addiction and Animal death

ae_young's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Gore, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, and Murder

Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual content, Fatphobia, and Rape

Minor: Pedophilia

adriennne's review against another edition

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Death, Fatphobia, and Self harm

Moderate: Alcoholism, Body horror, Death of parent, and Blood

Minor: Domestic abuse and Fire/Fire injury