Reviews tagging 'Bullying'

La novena casa by Leigh Bardugo

106 reviews

hippievamp's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Blood, Excrement, Grief, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Bullying, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Vomit

Minor: Addiction, Antisemitism, and Alcohol

there is an intense and extremely vivid description of attempted rape on a twelve year old.

vtorres25's review against another edition

dark

2.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Bullying, Child abuse, and Rape

cj_underw's review against another edition

adventurous challenging 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Bullying, Cursing, Drug use, Sexual assault, Violence, and Blood

emmiemopho's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad 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

5.0

I bought the sequel to this book at an airport not knowing it was a sequel until I realized certain terms were not being explained. So I did some digging and borrowed this one from a friend. So glad I did that! This isn’t my normal type of story but it had everything I love. Good adventure, natural mysteries, other worldly experiences, and the best of all? Not a single romance. It had a girl as the main character being a freaking bad ass and not one man came to knock her down or lose her shine with a relationship. It was all about enjoying that mystery murder and the drama of magic. Fun read! Onto the next one! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Addiction and Blood

Minor: Bullying

orlafitz14's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-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

4.0

Really enjoyable, dark academia meets ghosts, kind of scary but I loved it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Blood, Vomit, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

rainyghost's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious 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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Sexual assault, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Addiction, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Toxic relationship, Excrement, Stalking, and Gaslighting

kiwij96's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-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? Yes

4.0

This was a fantastic adult debut by Leigh Bardugo, I was genuinely impressed. It was a bit of a rocky start with the time jumps but about 80 pages in it definitely came into its own. Great magic system in the contemporary world, great mysteries surrounding the characters, and the plot twists were brilliant.

The concept for this book is well thought-out: Alex is a young girl plagued by ghosts, both metaphorical and literal, who finds herself with a free pass to one of the most prestigious universities as a result of her gift, and also where finds herself in the midst of at least 3 murder mysteries. However, at times the chapters were too long, paragraphs too clunky or generally too wordy. Her roommate characters were also super forgettable and definitely plot devices.

I would highly recommend checking your trigger warnings for this because there are some heavy topics and triggering scenes in here if you are unprepared.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Bullying, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Misogyny, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

erupoo's review against another edition

Got over half way through (10h12min, 7h51min left) and had to stop. Explicit and detailed descriptions of r*pe and SA, including with a child. Was very disappointed bc love Leigh Bardugo's other work but this ruined the book for me and prevented me finishing it. Would have been a great book otherwise. It was so unnecessary to include these.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Blood, Vomit, Murder, and Abandonment

subtlyfurious's review against another edition

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

1.0

Never before have I read a book that so utterly fails to live up to its spectacular beginning. 

The first few chapters are excellent (and the only reason I’m giving this book any stars). Bardugo weaves the character’s personalities and worldviews and backgrounds into the action flawlessly while also setting up a number of compelling topical themes. 

It’s all downhill from there. 

To me this feels like a YA book made “adult” by throwing in a bunch of disturbing content in for shock value alone. At first, I tried to give Bardugo the benefit of the doubt, believing she’d be able to give us a reason for why things weren’t just graphic, but borderline (or maybe fully) pornographic. But no. She fails to explore anything on a  deeper level, speaking about complex issues such as classism, racism, and sexism without doing any work to ever dip below the surface. In fact, her ability to swerve away from actually choosing a side and stating an opinion is almost impressive. 

Still, I pressed on thinking “surely Bardugo will find a way to wrap this up in a somewhat satisfying way.”

No.

The last 15% is a slog and (spoilers) the who that dunnit turn out to be both the most boring who-you-expect and the most throwaway character. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Excrement

Moderate: Bullying, Drug use, Medical trauma, Murder, and Classism

mylazybones's review against another edition

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? It's complicated

4.5

Leigh Bardugo has a way of spinning a mystery that makes me forget i’m turning pages and has me trying to resist the urge to let my eyes skip around the page to see what happens next. The beginning is rough, she throws a lot of names at you, but the web of misdirection she weaves is unmatched

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Bullying and Murder

Minor: Racism and Classism