Reviews tagging 'Schizophrenia/Psychosis '

My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna van Veen

25 reviews

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

kay_chan's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective medium-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? Yes

3.0

Spook and creep vibes had me hooked, but plot ultimately flopped by the end 😮‍💨 

LOVED the premise, characters and setting were interesting, if a bit shallow.

The POV switch off was what threw me off the most. Having the FMC become an omnipresent "future" narrator was not the shift the story called for. Distanced me too much to feel the creep because I knew it all worked out because she started narrating her story instead of letting it unfold. 

The only ick I had was that I was never truly sure how old Roos was during her abuse and then her being "sold" to Agnes. Also, their "relationship" gave me weird vibes in general because of the odd power dynamics and Roos being so blatantly *ignorant* of being a victim most of her life. Agnes' savior complex hit me the wrong way, which i guess was also the point in comparing it to "Turn of the Screw". 

Childhood innocence vs intentions

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Body horror and Gore

Minor: Child abuse, Confinement, Incest, and Medical trauma

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

caidyn's review

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

4.0

A good book! Creepy at times and definitely tense with wanting to know what happened.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse and Death

Moderate: Racism and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

aparker89's review

dark emotional 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

Wow! I just could not put this one down! I spent an entire day devouring this book and I imagine many others will too! I liked it so much- I plan on purchasing a hard copy in addition to the ebook! 
Absolutely fantastic writing! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Hate crime, Infertility, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Outing, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

doomham's review

dark mysterious slow-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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Racial slurs, and Racism

Moderate: Child death, Incest, Sexual assault, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Animal death

bookeduntil's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Grief, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child death, Incest, Infertility, Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Cannibalism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Lesbophobia, Abandonment, and Classism

blacksphinx's review

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

4.5

This is a really lovely sapphic Gothic that goes some places. I just loved the light epistolary touch - every couple of chapters you'll get a transcribed interview between our protagonist Roos and the doctor hired by the court to determine if she's sane enough to stand accused in a murder trial. I felt the interviews gave a good scaffolding to the book. Normally I hate narration that's like "little did they know that one of them would soon be dead", but knowing the tale we are being told has already occurred and getting flickers of how it ends just built up the dread for me. Some parts of this novel thrilled and chilled me; but at other points, I was stuck by how derivative certain plot elements were. (One character's backstory seemed lifted straight out of a very famous Gothic novel; the author even name-checks that one in the back.)

Overall this is a great novel about the lingering effects of trauma and what that does to those who survive. If you're a goth who is always tweeting about "toxic yuri", open a new tab and buy it now.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Eating disorder, Homophobia, Incest, Infidelity, Racial slurs, Racism, Terminal illness, Vomit, Medical content, Cannibalism, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Infertility, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, and Forced institutionalization

Minor: Animal death, Trafficking, Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Pregnancy

It's a massive spoiler but

drug overdose