Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Black Mouth by Ronald Malfi

10 reviews

maziodynes's review

adventurous 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? Yes

4.0

I enjoyed this book more than I thought initially! it's not as scary as I expected, more unsettling, and I liked the overarching theme of breaking cycles of abuse and how they can manifest. I also loved how flawed and, well, messy the cast of characters was. they felt incredibly real.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, and Murder

Moderate: Child death, Vomit, and Suicide

Minor: Racism and Stalking

jla's review

adventurous dark mysterious sad medium-paced

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

3.75

The first 80% of the book was eerie and suspenseful, but the resolution felt like it petered out. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, and Murder

arichey1988's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.75

This horror draws on human nature to build suspense. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Pedophilia, Death of parent, Alcohol, Ableism, Torture, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Homophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Bullying, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Alcoholism, Abandonment, Child death, Rape, Lesbophobia, and Emotional abuse

alexandragriffin's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad medium-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Alcoholism, and Child abuse

Moderate: Child death

Minor: Sexual assault

kermit_the_wrong's review

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• 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: Alcoholism, Death, Suicide, Child abuse, Body horror, Domestic abuse, Gore, Grief, Torture, Child death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Suicide attempt, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Ableism, Addiction, Alcohol, Drug abuse, Animal death, Bullying, Animal cruelty, Blood, Murder, and Death of parent

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Homophobia, Vomit, Medical content, Pedophilia, and Racism

sssmoser's review

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

3.0

𝐏𝐥𝐨𝐭: Jamie Warren has been avoiding his hometown for years, after dealing with a lot of childhood abuse and trauma and suffering through years of alcoholism. The death of his mother and need to care for his brother, bring him back to Black Mouth on a collision course with ghosts of his past. Joining him are two former friends who come together to finally deal with their past demons, both literally and figuratively.
𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫: Ronald Malfi
𝐏𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬: 436
𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: Horror
𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝:... Eh 🤷‍♀️
𝐁𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐝𝐞𝐥 𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭: Yes, but by the thinnest of hairs
𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐝: Contemporary
𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐲 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠:👻👻
𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰: ⭐⭐⭐
This is the fourth or fifth book I've read by Malfi, and I'm a big fan. Unfortunately this is my least favorite of his, as I never felt it got off the ground and went somewhere.

The book had a very similar vibe to two of my favorite Stephen King novels - It and Revival, but sadly the plot faltered. Jaimie is the main character and protagonist, but I found him to be the least interesting of the main four.

The friends are brought together after one of them witnesses a mysterious magician who had preyed on them as children, but besides them trying to solve that mystery, I felt like the book just kept adding more and more childhood trauma on these characters, with very little moving the plot along. Somewhere in the middle, an additional villain is added, and it just didn't work for me.

Despite it not living up to expectations and having quite a few pacing problems, there are still moments of lovely writing in here and I did really enjoy about half of it.

⭐⭐⭐

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Child death, and Addiction

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Violence, Animal death, Domestic abuse, and Animal cruelty

rachelunabridged's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Death of parent, Body horror, Domestic abuse, Murder, Toxic relationship, Alcoholism, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, and Mental illness

Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Lesbophobia, and Fatphobia

Minor: Suicide attempt and Infidelity

callikat's review against another edition

dark fast-paced

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

3.5

The premise is interesting, I did think it dragged on quite a bit though. 70% of the book seems to set up the final confrontation, and it was just a lot of exposition. I liked the imagery, but it was hard to visualize. I think it'd be a better movie than a book, honestly. A lot of the haunting/grotesque imagery didn't really translate for me. One aspect I really enjoyed is the dialogue -- I think it was very natural, and felt like real conversations. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism and Child death

Moderate: Body horror

Minor: Lesbophobia and Racism

bookworm4tea's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

own. I like how the timeline would switch between their time as children when everything started to get crazy and when they were adults and everything was still messed up. I think the author did a great job with creating such unique and flawed characters within the gang that was made up of Jamie, Dennis, Mia, and Clay. This was an extremely creepy, dark and often times difficult book to read as it touches on triggering topics. I really enjoyed the friends group and how they came back together to deal with the horrible problem that happened 20 years ago when they were only children. This book was amazingly well written and the atmosphere was so eerie an unnerving that it had me tensing up at some parts and the audiobook made it ten times creepier which is a definite plus. I would recommend this to horror lover who enjoy a story with spine-chilling atmosphere, well thought out characters and terrifying storyline that has your attention from start to finish. I loved the plot and thought the storyline flowed perfectly as I flew through the book in just a day. I think it would be easy to adapt this into a movie or show.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, and Alcoholism

Moderate: Animal cruelty

Minor: Suicide, Child death, and Animal death

cbroderick226's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Murder, Alcoholism, and Child abuse

Moderate: Child death, Ableism, and Gaslighting

Minor: Suicide attempt and Vomit