Reviews tagging 'Death'

The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay

183 reviews

itzbrianna's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.25

The Cabin at the End of the World is a tense and complex tale of how choice, grief, and our beliefs can affect our lives. Tremblay does a fantastic job setting up the story and showing the differences of the world he’s building through a child’s eyes vs an adults. He is a master word smith with beautiful sentences woven to create poetic and meaningful stories for his characters. 

There are several things Tremblay does well aside from his way with words. He is skilled at forcing the reader to reflect on the choices being presented to the characters causing them to analyze their own beliefs and choices they make or would make in a similar situation. He also does a great job of weaving in religion without it being preachy and instead focuses the questions on each character’s actions instead. 

I enjoyed most of this story and loved how reflective it was from beginning to end. There were some things Tremblay could’ve done better though. The story is slow, which isn’t a problem in this case, but in certain parts the story is too slow with unnecessary descriptors that took me out of the story. There is a lot from this book that could’ve been cut to make the impact on us (the reader) stronger. Also the switch in POVs was sometimes jarring, but I get what the author was trying to do with that. It just could’ve been done better. 

There is an event that happens which is a turning point in the story. After this moment, the novel starts to drag only finally picking back up when it’s almost the end. I think having the characters be two gay men with an adopted daughter was a perfect choice. And the differences between Andrew and Eric are apparent throughout the story. The most impactful part for me was the last few pages. I literally wept at the end, snot and hiccuping and everything. 

I would recommend this book as it has beautiful imagery and is fun to analyze with friends or with a book club. The overarching plot is entertaining and I personally think the payoff is worth it. But I guess it just depends on how you’re interpreting the story. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Suicide, Grief, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Misogyny and Medical trauma

mklmy's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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? No

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gun violence, Homophobia, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Suicide, Blood, Religious bigotry, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic

lilashelly's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

Oooh boy. I watched the movie when it came out, not realizing it was based on a book, and am probably one of the few who enjoyed the movie. I'm genuinely not sure how I feel about the changes between the book and the movie. I can see where it can be argued that changing how it ends changed the meaning of the book. I feel like the book did still leave some loose ends, there's some "but what happened next?" hanging in the air when you finish it, and I don't like that feeling. But it was overall a good book and I appreciated the changing POVs keeping you on your toes where you're not 100% sure what just occurred.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Cursing, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

nhammy's review against another edition

challenging 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Cursing, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, and Murder

marissa_nancy_nicole's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Child death, Vomit, Religious bigotry, and Alcohol

spaghettii's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

1.25

I guess it wasn't my genre.

I'm okay with open endings, especially if there's more of a psychological horror aspect. I feel like Eric's belief that it was all real was very sudden and not well built up to. I'm not sure if I'd prefer to think that it was real or not. I can appreciate an open ending, but sometimes they just feel like an excuse for loose ends.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, and Blood

Moderate: Body horror, Bullying, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

merlimarlo's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

i really enjoyed this book, but was a bit let down by the ending. although i understand the intention behind it, i would have liked some sort of answer. but maybe i will appreciate the ending more once i’ve spent more time thinking about it. 

update: i do appreciate the ending more now. also have not stopped thinking about this book since i finished it. i’m updating my rating from 4.25 to 4.75 :-)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, and Violence

blumerlamotte's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

Disturbing, gory, confounding, violent. A train wreck that you can’t look away from. I want to give the book less than 3 stars because of a horrible plot twist that I’ll never forgive the author for but I feel compelled to honor the uniqueness and lyrical beauty of the author’s voice.

Apparently there is a scary movie made from this book. There isn’t enough money in the world to get me to agree to watch it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Gun violence, and Violence

tome's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.5

I don't often read things in one sitting anymore, but this book transfixed me unlike any other. The ambiguity, the viscerality, the perspective, all of it left me utterly engrossed. I'm gonna have to sit with this one for a bit. Also, as a note, some of the trigger warnings added are, to some extent, dependent on what conclusion you make of the ambiguity. I've added them just in case.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Kidnapping, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Religious bigotry, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Gaslighting

ms_sarah621's review against another edition

dark sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

At first, this book had me so captivated. I was trying to hard to determine who to believe and what was actually happening. It felt very slow burn, but I was still intrigued by what was happening. There were enough questions and events happening to have me interested. However, the last half of this book just dragged for me and it took me forever to finish it because of that. Then, the ending was sad and slightly disappointing. It just felt so stretched out and slow paced for nothing to really ever happen. I’m not sure, but I did really enjoy the beginning and premise of this book. It’s still worth a read

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Hate crime, and Homophobia