Reviews tagging 'Self harm'

My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna van Veen

22 reviews

howlinglibraries's review

dark emotional 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? Yes

5.0

 

"It's a dangerous thing, to try and give someone everything. One day, you might find you've given away things you should've kept."

This was one of the most beautifully haunting books I've read in quite a while and has easily, instantly found its way onto the 'best books of 2024' list in my mind. My Darling Dreadful Thing is precisely what I want from a gothic horror novel: dark, romantic, claustrophobic, and downright chilling. Scenes of horrific imagery and even worse traumas take place against an immersive and poetic backdrop filled with forbidden love, and I adored it. It broke my heart more than once. I can't wait to read more of Johanna's works. ♥

“. . . there’s something missing from my life, something dreadful, something darling.”

✨ Representation: sapphic romance, queer MC, Indonesian and bi/pan love interest 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Racism, Self harm, Terminal illness, and Murder

Moderate: Gore, Rape, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Forced institutionalization, and Medical trauma

Minor: Animal death, Child death, Incest, Infertility, Infidelity, and Pedophilia

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

kermitluver69's review

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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, and Stalking

Moderate: Incest and Miscarriage

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

whatsmacksaid's review

dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Racial slurs, Self harm, Terminal illness, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Racism, Rape, Sexual violence, and Lesbophobia

Minor: Incest, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Death of parent, and Pregnancy

dabrandt's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness

Moderate: Mental illness, Rape, Sexual assault, and Terminal illness

Minor: Self harm

raven_nivhaar's review

dark reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

TW: racism; homophobia; self-harm; brief mention of incest; food anxiety; PTSD; SA depicted on page with vague description; brief mention of animal death. 

Riddled with melancholy and gothic charm, this book was very well written. Everything was quite vivid, and I found myself flying through this book just to see what happened next. 
I didn't really care for the interviews with the doctor, which felt more like a means of increasing tension than providing much substance. 

If you are squeamish with gore, the descriptions of the ghosts might be a turn off for you. 

Overall, I enjoyed this book. 

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism and Blood

Minor: Animal death, Child abuse, Eating disorder, Homophobia, Incest, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, and Vomit

marimaria's review

dark emotional reflective 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? Yes

5.0

Oh my god I love this! I just wanna give Roos a hug. I think I'm gonna need some time to process this beautiful story. But I for sure found myself another comfort book. There's just something about Gothic literature that really attracts me so easily.

And the addition of the Doctor's transcripts lowkey gave me

Sucker Punch

vibes for some reason.

I also did not expect this to be a love story. It's quite beautiful yet so very tragic.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Mental illness, Sexual assault, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Sexual content, Death of parent, and Abandonment

Minor: Self harm

zgreyz's review

dark medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Homophobia, Incest, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Vomit, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Drug use, Infertility, Misogyny, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Grief, Cannibalism, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Pregnancy

Minor: War