Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill

43 reviews

scvalentine's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I listened as an audiobook and highly recommend it as the reader is great at distinguishing characters and making some sound super creepy.

As a young girl, Vic escapes the tension of her family one night on her brand new bicycle, but it doesn’t just take her down the road, it takes her over a bridge that doesn’t exist to places where she finds lost things. At the same time, a chemical plant worker named Bing, is found by a man named Charlie Manx who drives a 1930s Rolls Royce. Manx offers him a job he has been dreaming of for years, one that is the worst nightmare of most people.

Vic and Manx cross paths and it ends in his arrest and her trauma. As she grows up, she’s haunted by what she has seen. But everything gets even worse when Vic has her own son and mysteriously, Manx dies in prison. 

It’s hard to give a good description without giving stuff away, but if you’re looking for a creepy and disturbing book about the crossover between internal and external worlds, I recommend this. I did think the first half had some slow parts, but once I got halfway, it flew by. Lots of trigger warnings for this, so look those up before reading if you need to.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Domestic abuse and Pedophilia

infernalspectre's review against another edition

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Body shaming, Child abuse, Death, Fatphobia, Racism, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Addiction and Alcoholism

I almost finished this book, but it got to the point where I was just sick of it. Sometimes I forget that things don't just get more progressive over time and people still write books where evil people have facial differences which make them ugly, their henchmen are always mentally disabled and also ugly, fat people are lazy nerds who can't stop eating McDonalds and will inevitably have a heart attack, and while we're at it throw in a bit about how Indian people talk funny. Seriously, race is almost never mentioned except for the 2 Indian characters and of course the audiobook has to have the narrator do a kwiki-mart accent for them. Wild.

lbracs's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

If you asked me what I thought of this book or what rating it would receive for the first 60%, I probs would have given it 2 stars - not because it’s bad, just because I wasn’t into it. But once the plot got real good about 2/3 in I definitely got more invested and more ravenously read the back half. It was a pretty disturbing and graphic book in parts, definitely didn’t pull punches and sometimes it felt gratuitous, but I don’t know. Won’t be a repeat read, but I’m ok that I read it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cursing, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Child death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, and Sexual harassment

aposthuma's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

This book is SO GOOD. It has everything: romance, coming of age, fantasy elements, and a whole lot of pure horror. It starts strong and the pace just doesn't let up, culminating in a wonderfully satisfying ending. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Blood, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

phoenix13'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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death

Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Rape, and Kidnapping

madelinequinnee's review

dark emotional 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

5.0

Second book of the year written by someone from the King family! 

I really enjoyed this more than I expected. I went in thinking it would be more ‘vampirey’, if that makes sense, but i guess the Nosferatu mentions are more metaphorical than literal. 

I found this really easy to get lost in, the story was interesting and the writing was really descriptive and painted a great picture of the world it takes place in. 

There are a few trigger warnings i would look out for if you’re going to read this and are sensitive to certain topics.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Fatphobia, Gore, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Stalking, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

priscillarobock's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• 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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

booksanddopamine's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

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

2.75

This book is much longer than it needs to be. And there's A LOT more stereotyping than there needs to be.

The fatphobia. Wtf. The fat shaming was over the top and gross. 

Also, I am not sure why many horror authors (namely cis het men) feel the need to include a heavy dose of sexual violence towards women, and graphically so. 

The book overall wasn't necessarily scary, but it did make me feel uncomfortable and gross.

Other things I hated:

Killing off the only queer characters. Graphic description of the dog's death.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Sexual violence, and Violence

judassilver's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious tense slow-paced

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

1.25

This book would have greatly benefited from condensing and trimming of the length. It drags, and the parts I feel are unnecessary really drag down the parts I do like in this book. It's somehow both too edgy and too cheesy? Overly long but also somehow underdeveloped/explored

(they don't even get to Christmasland until 90% in and then Vic dies off page!)

? I liked our cast of heros, but there is so much build up that the ending feels underwhelming and the part

about the ornaments felt especially cheap.

Overall the book came off as very crude-- certain metaphors and instances describing child and female characters were especially off-putting to me. And that's not even to mention the gratuitous fat phobia and off-hand racist remarks by various characters (and the narrator) that I don't really feel benefited the narrative. I would recommend the audio book if for nothing else than the benefit of being able to 2.5x speed listen to it, but I would caution to definitely check trigger warnings. Also note that this book is not about vampires. This book came highly recommended, so I'm sad this one just wasn't for me. 
Specific spoilers for those curious:

Random n-slur and k-slur drop in one line, the dog does die--brutally. There are also a lot of descriptions of penises (and synonyms, in varying levels of ridiculous!) and their various actions. The MC gets back into good terms with her abusive father at the end, and one character is excessively, I mean everytime he's in a scene, described as fat until he gets weight loss surgery at the end of the book. Also a few unfortunate Harry Potter refs

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Homophobia, Antisemitism, and Islamophobia

katiearcher's review against another edition

dark emotional tense slow-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

5.0

First five star read of 2024!

This book was an emotional rollercoaster. Did it need to be 984 pages? No! Did I love it anyway? Yes! Despite the intimidating length of the book and some particularly (gratuitous at times) graphic moments, I loved this book.

When I first started the book I questioned how much I was really going to care about Vic “the Brat” McQueen. But by the end I didn’t want to say goodbye to her and her family. Hill does a good job building the heros and the villains of this story. While I have no sympathy for the sadistic villains in NOS4A2 they are more complex than your average vampire villain.

If the length of the book intimidates you, I highly recommend the audio book as well which is narrated by Kate Mulgrew!

I highly recommend checking TW for this book as there are a lot of upsetting and disturbing topics covered.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Gore, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Murder

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Fatphobia, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Torture, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Pedophilia