Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Billy Summers by Stephen King

122 reviews

rnbhargava's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

This mostly character based crime story about a former army sniper hit man is surprisingly quite charming and tender in some aspects, tense, hard boiled and action packed in others. Excellent read. I’m glad this is my first Stephen King. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Trafficking, Grief, Murder, Gaslighting, War, and Injury/Injury detail

There’s child death, rape, various abuses and war throughout the story as key elements. There’s also a pedophile that’s a target in the story. They share base information about his heinous acts to fully condemn him. This is a crime story so many characters are unsavoury in varying ways. I may have missed some triggers.

ariieesbixx's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional 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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Sexual violence, Medical trauma, Murder, Sexual harassment, and War

Moderate: Blood

cyndi1966's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship

em_h_ma's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense fast-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? It's complicated

4.0

I’d never read a Stephen King book thinking he only wrote horror story. Turns out Billy Summers is a mystery novel I came across on a YouTube channel. The girl reviewing couldn’t stop crying, I now understand why.

The ending of the book is so unfair. Billy didn’t deserve to die. I wanted his love story with Alice to come true.

Billy Summers is a former Marine turned mercenaire. It’s supposed to be his last job before retiring but things don’t go as planned.

He rescued Alice, a 21 year old rape survivor and ends up hiding at Bucky’s place.

The writing really did something to me. I couldn’t let go of the story.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, and Pedophilia

garlicbread247's review against another edition

The German translation was really weird - extremely simple sentence structure and old-fashioned expressions - I kept cringing all the time :/
Also, it felt like King wrote two different books and tried to merge them somehow (and I don't mean the "book within a book" - oh so it's actually three different plots). 
For these reasons, I didn't finish Billy Summers (at 74%). Maybe I could have struggled through somehow, but the writing style killed it for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Rape, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

julieb3a's review against another edition

tense

2.5

Other 3 star reviews say it better than I will. Better than the average book, but not my favorite of his works. Some ideas were repeated too many times, character building in the first half is slow,

and I didn’t like the love story with Alice. At least he killed off Billy and didn’t leave them in love together on the run.

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual violence, and Murder

lamianoctalis's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.25

Wie immer ein interessanter Roman von Stephen King.
Ich muss sagen, am Anfang war ich nicht überzeugt von Billy, aber im Laufe der Zeit ist er mir ans Herz gewachsen und die Minuten flogen nur dahin. Ich glaube, das war der erste von Kings Romanen, wo ich nicht zwischendurch überlegt hab, ob ich nachts einschlafen können werde, was aber absolut nicht negatives ist. Ich habe gelacht, Tränen vergossen, mit gefiebert und war entsetzt und entrüstet. Die subtile Einbindung anderer Bücher hat mir auch gefallen, sodass ich mich echt fragte, ob noch mehr aus den vergangenen Geschichten übernommen wird.

(Das war nicht der Fall, aber das Hotel hat mich echt schaudern lassen)

Das was mir in der Vergangenheit bei Büchern von King nie gefallen und mich stets aus der Geschichte gerissen hat, waren die vulgären Ausdrücke und Objektifizierungen, die Frauen beschrieben haben (ich verstehe, dass sie ein Ziel verfolgten und natürlich die Geschichten aus einer Zeit stammen, wo noch nicht so viel darüber nachgedacht wurde), das war jedoch in Billy Summers nicht der Fall. Man merkt, dass sich Kings Schreibstil (oder der der Übersetzer) geändert hat und ich würde sagen nur zum Besseren. Personen, die man hassen sollte, hat man gehasst. Personen, die einen anekeln sollten, haben einen angeekelt und Personen, die man mögen oder sogar lieben sollte, hat man geliebt. 
Und überhaupt nicht Nebenbei bemerkt, hat David Nathan sich selbst übertroffen in der Vertonung.

Ich kann Billy Summers (insbesondere als Hörbuch) nur jedem wärmstens empfehlen, egal ob King Fan oder Neuling (oder Überwältigter von der Dicke seiner Bücher).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Violence, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Death, Gun violence, Rape, Sexual assault, Medical content, and War

Minor: Domestic abuse, Vomit, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Die Protagonistin wird von mehreren Personen vergewaltigt, was der Protagonist den Tätern heimzahlt

So wie zu erwarten in einem Buch über einen Auftragsmörder, werden Personen ermordet. Der Protagonist war Soldat im Mittleren Osten. Die Corona-Pandemie wird erwähnt, aber nicht weiter ausgeführt, was auf die Zeit hinweist, zu der King das Buch schrieb.

veronikar's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Death, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Sexual assault, Blood, Murder, and War

liam_ted's review against another edition

emotional tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Violence, Vomit, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Rape, and Trafficking

nailartklaudia's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual violence, Blood, Vomit, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Rape, and Sexual assault