Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

Gone by Michael Grant

9 reviews

jakubus's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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? It's complicated

4.5

Doesn't hold back on the cruelty as well as the hope that arises from severely traumatic situations. Great building of story and characters, and gives each character some sense of redeemability, allowing the reader to, while they will certainly pick a side, at least understand the actions of different characters. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racism, Violence, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

gilmargirl's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-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

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Ableism, Body horror, Bullying, Child death, Death, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Racism, Violence, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

m4ferglez's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-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

4.5

A wonderful start to a wonderful series. Lord of the flies meets X-Men in the most gruesome wsy you can imagine. Grant is a master at portraying brutally realistic situations that come along with his premise. 

I do find it at times hard to believe how bloodthirsty some of the kids are, and the coyote/darkness scenes can get pretty repetitive, but otherwise a wonderful novel. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Eating disorder, Gore, Gun violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Domestic abuse, Excrement, and Vomit

123urmom's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Eating disorder, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Torture, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Addiction, Drug use, Racism, Kidnapping, and Alcohol

i live in a small town where slurs are said all the time. i read the rword more times than i’ve heard it in my life???? holy shit????

villainessreads's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

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

2.5

My biggest gripe is how the characters of Edilio and Pete were handled. Quinn is openly and blatantly racist against Edilio and he's not really punished for it. He's still a "good guy" at the end. There's no narrative pushback for calling Edilio a slur like there is for Pete's slurs. I kept reading, but it never stopped being uncomfortable. I don't know how the author is normally a great ally and failed to see how horrible it would be for a PoC to read how Edilio was treated by the narrative. He's practically their housekeeper: cleans up their mess but never gets any narrative credit for his contributions. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Body horror, Bullying, Child death, Death, Eating disorder, Gore, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Racism, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Mass/school shootings, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

0pen_b00ks's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

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

3.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child death, Death, Eating disorder, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Car accident, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Alcoholism and Animal death

highcrisis's review against another edition

adventurous challenging fast-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

4.5

michael grant and k a applegate of animorphs fame on their first date
katherine applegate: i wonder if we have anything in common? for example, I love writing novels that contain extreme body horror and disturbing settings-
michael grant: omg for 12 year olds?
katherine applegate: omg yes for 12 year olds

content warnings: body horror, dead babies, bulimia, nuclear(?) mutations, gore, animal horror(?), opioid addiction, alcoholism, amputation, mass child graves, car crash

honestly the fact that I went from reading a grimdark adult fantasy to this and the tone barely changed at ALL??

fucked harder than when I read it as a kid. this book really shows you that you don't need to dumb writing down for kids, this shit was hard, the character motivations were great (like, these 14 year olds kids were complex!!), the mystery, the fantasy mystery, the gross body horror!! jeff vandermeer was taking NOTES when he wrote annihilation!

this book is better than most YA and middle grade fiction right now to be quick fucking honest! and also reinforces my opinion that kids books in the 2000s were better because there was no weird american puritanical bullshit insisting they had to insert ~moral learnings~ into the novel every few chapters. like, michael grant wrote a charming, manipulative asshole as the villain in this novel, and it fucking lands!

4.5 rounded up (4 bc it was a bit dicey towards the end, 5 bc it fucking slaps)

anyways book 2 lets go

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Gore, Car accident, and Alcohol

delphic's review against another edition

too unnecessarily graphic, was interested in the main idea for the book but found the

the burnt body of a toddler, a girl lying on the road as her limbs turn gangrenous, the mention of babies dying and the description of binge eating

all a bit too much especially so early on and close together

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Eating disorder, Gore, Blood, Car accident, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Vomit

yashirolevi's review against another edition

adventurous tense fast-paced

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

3.0

oh, this one was really not for me. i can see the appeal with fans of the maze runner series, which also was not really my cup of tea. i don't think that the characters and the world was really flushed out to the extent that it could have within the first book and this just kept me really bored. there were many characters to keep track of and they did not feel like they were all under the age of fifteen. i'll read the next installment only because i, once again, bought it full price and i can't let that money just go to waste if i don't read that. i sure hope that i will have some kind of interest in the following book lol. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Child death, Death, Gore, and Violence

Moderate: Gun violence and Mental illness