Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi

18 reviews

headachesince03's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Body shaming, Death, Eating disorder, Gore, Hate crime, Mental illness, Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Lesbophobia, and Dysphoria

Moderate: Gore, Racism, Sexual content, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Suicide attempt, Lesbophobia, and War

Minor: Bullying, Confinement, Cursing, Drug use, Gun violence, Incest, Xenophobia, Vomit, Mass/school shootings, Stalking, Murder, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

hownoveljo's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Eating disorder, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Terminal illness

savvylit's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad slow-paced

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

3.5

I loved a lot of aspects of this story. It's a gothic haunted house tale with loads of magical realism and critical social commentary. It has multiple POVs and one of them is the house itself. Not to mention that some of the sentences that Oyeyemi has crafted are truly exquisite.

But overall I felt like Oyeyemi was creatively overextending herself in this story. Too many issues were addressed but not thoroughly explored. Too many creepy things hinted at but not quite revealed. I wished that the novel had been a little more polished.

The story overall was a very bleak slice of life, primarily focusing on Miranda. Which is unfortunate because I didn't like Miranda. Miranda is a bit of a two-dimensional cliche of a mentally ill young woman. Also, I really loved that one of the narrators was the house, but I didn't feel like we heard enough from their perspective.

Ultimately, I had a lot of questions throughout the story that I felt were never answered. And not in a good, ambiguous ending way. More like a "why did the thread of this story get dropped so quickly" kinda way. All of our narrators are unreliable but the true story is never really revealed.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Suicide, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Death of parent

podanotherjessi's review against another edition

challenging dark slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Suicidal thoughts, and Death of parent

sallywardlaw's review against another edition

dark mysterious fast-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Eating disorder, Gore, Hate crime, Mental illness, Self harm, Death of parent, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Blood, and Stalking

lizsmartie13's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Helen Oyeyemi is a fascinating writer. I don’t know that I fully “get” this book, and it was so slow going at first I wasn’t sure what would keep me going, but once Miranda got to Cambridge I was extremely invested. The “haunted house” (and I use big quotes there because that’s such a simplification of what is going on) was so terrifying and thrilling.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Eating disorder, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, and Xenophobia

emotes's review against another edition

dark mysterious

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder

Moderate: Incest, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Cannibalism

goblingirlreads's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

There was a lot about this book that I found very interesting - the house, the twins, the writing style was beautiful. Perhaps it was the state of mind that I read it but the story itself was really wobbly and unfocused and I struggled to keep my attention and focus throughout. I had a difficult time parsing the timeline of events and focusing on what was happening. There's a lot of "what's real and what's not" going on on top of time weirdness which I'm sure is completely intentional but didn't help my focus problem and made me lose the through line and forward movement of the story. I also found the ending a bit anticlimactic and underwhelming but, like I said there was a lot to love as well that drew me in.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Dementia, and Grief