Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna van Veen

36 reviews

chainsawheartbooks's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-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

5.0

“I wanted to eat her up and drink her in. I was hungry for her touch and her words and her love.”

A tale of ghosts, a discussion about mental health, and a truly wonderful love story.

I absolutely adored this book, I didn’t ever want to put it down, and I’m fairly sure I fell asleep mid-chapter as I kept telling myself just one more page!

Set in the 1950s, Roos and Agnes are two beautifully rich characters that transcend their era. The writing was just gorgeous and I desperately need another novel from Van Veen, please. In fact, this has sky-rocketed into my top three.

As with all horrors, especially those set before the modern day, there are a lot of potential triggers which are important to note (these can be found below), and the author does include a content warning at the start which I thought was a nice touch. 

Some of the characters angered me in such a deep way that I wanted to jump in the book and fight them myself. But then others, such as Peter, were so genuine and good that it lifted my heart to read; especially the scene with him and the bee! 🐝 

If you’re looking for a heart wrenching love story that’s perfectly interlaced with a chillingly haunted edge, then I can highly recommend, especially for this spooky season.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gore, Homophobia, Incest, Infertility, Infidelity, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Blood, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Body shaming, Murder, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

kiramydeara's review

dark emotional mysterious sad

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.75

Reminds me two things: 

1) “You said I killed you—haunt me then!” from Wuthering Heights and 
2) “it’s not a ghost story, it’s a love story” “same thing really” from Haunting of Bly Manor. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Racism, Rape, and Grief

Minor: Incest

artemismoon057's review against another edition

dark fast-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Xenophobia, Murder, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

bookswithabbey1's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Violence, Murder, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

etpreads's review

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Incest, Infertility, Infidelity, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Blood, and Grief

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Confinement, Miscarriage, Blood, and Vomit

nadiarausa's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Blood, Grief, and Abandonment

Moderate: Body horror, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Gore, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Vomit, Murder, Lesbophobia, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Bullying, Child death, Homophobia, Infertility, Pedophilia, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Abortion, and Pregnancy

alxisrae's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad 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? No

4.0

Firstly this book exceeded my expectation. I listened to the audiobook and I think the narrator did an amazing job. This book was a gothic dream with the mood throughout this book. Roos was so darling and naive - yet we got to see her grow through the book. I’m so saddened for her by the end of this book. Ruth is so so complex I really enjoyed her. This was Crimson Peak-ish vibes and this I could see just painted in my mind by not only the author but the narrator. The story between Agnus and Roos was also beautiful with a tragic sorrow at the end. But the ending leaves a small bit of hope for not only Roos but Ruth as well. Highly recommend!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Chronic illness, Death, Emotional abuse, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Mental illness, Sexual content, and Violence

Minor: Incest, Sexual assault, and Sexual harassment

kiandrareadsbooks's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, and Rape

Moderate: Child abuse, Confinement, Incest, Mental illness, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Cannibalism, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

scherzoseven's review

challenging dark sad slow-paced

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

1.0

My husband is Indo, so I was initially very excited to see a queer Indo character in a horror novel! Unfortunately, that excitement waned with every passing chapter.

I wanted to like Agnes. I wanted my husband to feel seen in Agnes, but alas, she was written by a white woman who pats herself on the back for portraying Indo culture in a very othering and orientalist way. Sometimes it felt like the only reason Agnes was Indo was to make Roos look better for not being racist. Or to give Roos something new and "exotic" to react to (the scene where she cries over sambal comes to mind. Or the fact that they only ever eat spekkoek and kroepoek). Or so Roos could make a fetishistic observation about her skin or the texture of her pubes (barf).

There were so many little things about Agnes that I wish had been expanded on, like her past as a pianist or her time with her mother. Instead, the author focused on things that really would have been better handled in an Own Voices story.

Outside of Agnes, I found this book to be boring and unintentionally funny. By the end, every new horrific plot twist just made the whole scenario funnier to me. It's a gothic horror, of course we need to play trauma Bingo while a ghost throws around plaster saints, but it all just became a bit silly and over the top. We had back to back plot twists of

Agnes' abusive marriage (who could have seen that coming??), the forced drugging, racism fueled incest, all culminating in Wilhemijn's rotting corpse on the lawn! What's a little crushed glass on top of that?

My immersion had been erroding for a long time by this point, but there was a bit where Roos is explaining her connections to one of the statues and actually says, outloud, "my name means rose in Dutch." The issue with that is, even though the book is written in English, it's established early on that Roos only speaks Dutch. So she is speaking Dutch with another Dutch person when she says it! Roos betekent Roos in het Nederlands?? You don't say!

By the time the epilogue hit, I was already over it all, but needed to see how it ended. I was not disappointed.

Roos gets off on murder charges because she is simply too small and weak to have killed anyone and it turns out powdered glass can't kill a person. The end. And even though they think she's psychotic and her face has been all over the newspapers, they just let her walk away. She forms a new life where she desperately waits to be able to fetishize Agnes again, who will have her whole self stripped away except for her love for Roos.

What a happy ending for the white girl!

Giving this one star because my husband and I will be laughing about soft Indo pubes and Roos meaning Roos for a very long time. I also really liked Peter and Ruth and their relationships with their living people.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Suicide attempt, and Murder

Moderate: Child abuse, Homophobia, Infertility, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Lesbophobia, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal death and Death of parent

melodyseestrees's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Racial slurs, Terminal illness, and Blood

Moderate: Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Homophobia, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Medical content, Grief, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Animal death and Death of parent