Reviews tagging 'Panic attacks/disorders'

The Butcher and the Wren by Alaina Urquhart

16 reviews

parchementhallucinations's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

5.0

So freaking good! Best thriller I have read in a long time. How is this Alaina's first book and it's THIS good?? I enjoyed the detailed medical aspect of this book (you may not like it if you're squeamish). I love a dual POV. I also felt like she did an excellent job at making me hate the killer, in that "love to hate him" kind of way. I can't wait for the sequel!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Torture, Violence, Medical trauma, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Confinement, Gun violence, and Kidnapping

Minor: Animal death and Panic attacks/disorders

edietz22's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Stalking, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

opplecopter's review against another edition

dark 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Confinement, Gun violence, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders

goosegirl16's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-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? It's complicated

4.5

The small chapters make it easy to digest and the alternating chapters between the two main characters makes the book fly by. Although the twist was somewhat predictable, it still caught me off guard as the puzzle pieces slowly were put together. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Self harm, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

ecandrews0's review

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

1.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Vomit, and Medical content

Minor: Addiction, Cursing, Suicide attempt, and Alcohol

wrensreadingroom's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

chasingpages1's review

dark emotional informative mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Gore, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, and Grief

Minor: Animal death, Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, Suicide, and Abandonment

antitypically's review

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

0.25

Very flat underdeveloped characters, book suffered a lot from poor structure and major plot inconsistencies. This book reads like it had an editor that chose to make it as difficult to read as possible while still being saleable. The chapters are too short to give the reader a good sense of sequence of events, like the worst attempt ever to build tension. It actually has the opposite effect. 

The way the book was written really leaves me wondering if the views of the author are in agreement with the truly disturbing views of the characters. I don't listen to the podcast she hosts, so I don't know what her ideologies are but both the protagonists and the antagonist express explicit opinions very related to eugenics, and there are some truly problematic examples, such as:

-straight at the beginning, within the first 5 pages, the incredibly unlikeable narrator (in the third person) goes on at length about the importance of skull shape (startling to see phrenology being promoted even if it is by a villain) and how some people are just congenitally inferior prey. These views are written in 3rd person but not written in such a way as to say he thinks these things or feels they are true- it just states them, which is an odd and not good choice.
-the policeman and the protagonist agreeing that the murder victims were "hotel art humans" (page 59) and unremarkable, despite previously expressed a commitment to identifying the "Jane Does" really shocked me. There is some superficial sentiment occasionally sprinkled throughout the prose where the protagonist expressed a willingness to find out what happened to the victims, but largely her focus is based on a morbid obsession with imagining their final moments.

I have some other gripes about this text:
-repetitive vocabulary (lividity, anyone?)
-lack of good setting/descriptions
-basing parts of character communication on events or situations that are not part of the text which the reader has no reference for, such as the repeated references to their exhaustion from being overworked but no evidence of this in any other form
-contradicting information, such as when they are in the crime scene and find the business card, they talk about all the other victims but there was only one victim we the reader know anything specific about and then make conclusions without giving the reader any details whatsoever to back those claims "the scene in front of them is the product of careful research, planning, and complex abstract thought" but they had in just the page before said "the killer saw how simple this dump could be if he played it cool"
-wren says the last victim was refrigerated when in fact the last victim was behind the bar and it was the victim in the swamp who had been refrigerated
-very shallow characters, very one dimensional and generic
-complete and utter lack of any diversity whatsoever
-she rage quits a trait reading which had been super generic
-she told her friends she had to go to work but immediately went to a bar nearby to where she left them
-the really unprofessional and tv drama behavior of law enforcement
-the really I'll structured plot twist that felt like it was tacked onto the plot

CW/TW- death, bodies
-super clinical impersonal descriptions of dead people, the terms are sometimes used in a way that sound like a lecture as though in the beginning the author wanted to inform the reader but the dialogue of what the characters were saying did not sound like a normal human conversation... By the end of the book she was describing the smell of a rotting corpse by comparing it to a variety of food related smells.

There is just so so so much about this book that could have been better. It feels hurriedly or chaotically put together but not properly fleshed out.

It's like a bread that was put in the oven at too high a temp to get done faster but what happened was it burned on the outside but was undercooked on the inside. Inedible

The ending felt like it was purposely there to keep the door open for a sequel and I must say if that does happen I am not reading it.
 text

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Violence, Kidnapping, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Body shaming, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Torture, Blood, Vomit, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, and Vomit

eviethebookworm's review against another edition

challenging dark tense fast-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Confinement, Death, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Torture, Stalking, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

leazybeazy's review

mysterious medium-paced

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

1.0

It was a good premise, but we learnt little about Wren and an incredible amount about the Butcher. The location could have really been anywhere with swamps, there was very little sense of place despite the book being set in New Orleans. The descriptions of the dead bodies were incredibly graphic by comparison. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Torture, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail