Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

Whalefall by Daniel Kraus

20 reviews

eklektikam's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny tense fast-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Cancer, Suicide, and Terminal illness

loquaciousleon's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional inspiring medium-paced

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

4.75

If you liked 

• 'Life of Pi' and/or 'Dark Life'.
• Are intrigued by the premise/summary.
• Okay with storytelling that closely follows a graphic 3rd person narrative; walking through actions quite a bit.

you will like this story.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Cancer, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

aprilb_reads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad 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? Yes

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Confinement, Death, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Gore, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Blood, Vomit, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

septi's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense fast-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Gore, Suicide, Terminal illness, Blood, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cancer, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Violence, and Vomit

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders and Pandemic/Epidemic

richardlvargas's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

Though it has a slow start, Whalefall becomes a suspenseful and unique story of survival and loss. A young man dealing with the death of his father, whom he had a complicated relationship, ends up in a truly horrific survival scenario - trapped inside a sperm whale. 

Told in a third person stream of consciousness, Whalefall is a journey through the young man’s life before this, and how his relationships with his family brought him here. It is a bit tragic at times, and also gruesome in some ways as well. Jonah in the whale, this is not. It’s also very realistic and scientifically accurate. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, and Blood

Minor: Suicide

klinkertinlegs's review

adventurous emotional funny tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Suicide, Terminal illness, Death of parent, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

hbic's review against another edition

adventurous dark informative 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Gore, Suicide, and Injury/Injury detail

arborapollonis's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Picked this up at the bookstore a few weeks back, not thinking too much of it but still being intrigued by its premise, blurb, and format. Truly one of the best decisions I've made. Kraus tells the harrowing tale of a boy trying to survive inside of a whale, while also trying to come to terms with the role his father played in his life. It's dark, it's gross, the tension is maintained expertly, but there's also this pervasive tenderness throughout the story. For family, for the ocean, for the planet. Despite feeling iffy about it at first, I ended up also really liking the religious references throughout. A little bit of a coincidence plot, which I'm personally not a big fan of, but it was handled much better than in other books I've read. Definitely worth the time!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty and Body horror

Moderate: Suicide and Vomit

cozmicdotcom's review against another edition

emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cancer, Child abuse, Gore, Suicide, and Death of parent

iam's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

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

2.25

To be completely fair to the book, I was fully aware that this wouldn't be entirely up to my speed. But I am committed to finding more SciFi/deep sea horror books, so I gave it a chance.

The SciFi part felt misleading to me. I guess it is a much broader term than I like to think, but for me it implied a futuristic setting, or speculating about sciences, but this was... none of that. Maybe some people count the "getting swallowed by a whale" scenario as speculative and scientific, but.... nah, not to me in this case. If it had been more focussed on the horror or science of it, maybe, but that's not what this way.

I cannot entirely speak to the realism and scientific accurary of the book, about sperm whale and other oceanic animal behaviour and anatomy.

That said, the main focus of the book was not the science or horror of getting swallowed by a whale. Instead it's about family relationships, maybe the dysfunctional dynamic between the protagonist, teenager Jay, and his father. I expected that, so I was ready for the constant and numerous flashbacks. I found them a bit disjointed, but they frequently fed perfectly into the happenings of the current "present tense" timeline, which I appreciated.

What I didn't entirely appreciate or expect was the almost spiritual elements. While inside the whale, Jay hears and talks to a voice, which is seemingly his father and the whale in one being. It was bizarre, though I sort of compmarentalized it as that phenomenon when someone in a life or death situation hears an outside voice telling them how to act. In a way that makes sense to me, too, as that is exactly what happens, with Jay remembering past conversations and experiences with his family that help him deal with the situations he's in.

However, some of the things just seemed a bit too convenient, or bizarre. Like the whale just HAPPENING to have swallowed exactly the things that Jay needs to survive. Or Jay being able to tell the whale to call for help when it gets attacked by Orcas, and there being a whole massive showdown between a pod of orcas and a bunch of sperm whales??? I may be completely wrong, but idk, that just broke my suspension of disbelief.

To keep it short: overall I this was a rounded story with a quite satisfying ending. However, I wasn't a fan of the execution or themes, but I knew that going in. It could have been a solid three star read for me, but the part towards the end that tries to absolve the abusive father of any guilt and says it's actually also the son's fault that he was abused, knocked that down for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Cancer, Gore, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Self harm, Suicide, and Alcohol