Reviews tagging 'Domestic abuse'

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill

22 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

kimgray0's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

It’s a horror book so the darkness is to be expected. It’s easy to dislike the characters, but that works in this book. It’s a compelling read, as you never know what is going to happen next. I loved this book way more than I thought I would, even though it sat in my TBR pile for years! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Drug abuse, Kidnapping, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Animal death, Domestic abuse, Self harm, and Medical content

Minor: Police brutality

It’s a book in the horror genre, expect it to have all the trigger warnings as usual.

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

joshkiba13's review against another edition

dark emotional funny 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? Yes

5.0

"[E]veryone ha[s] his own world inside, each as real as the communal world shared by all but impossible for others to access . . . It sounded like delusion until you remembered that people made the imaginary real all the time . . . Fantasy was always only a reality waiting to be switched on." -Joe Hill, NOS4A2

Who knew Christmas could be so creepy?? I'm honestly left quite stunned by this book. Its creep factor was dialed up to 11-- by far the creepiest story I've ever read. And at the same time it had such heart to it.

I felt that the story was utterly unique. The opening passages are frightening and foreboding, and I love how we jumped back in time from that point and resumed there later on.

Charlie Manx was a scary bad guy for sure, but his right-hand man, Bing Partridge (aka the Gas Mask Man) was even creepier in my opinion. The first chapters where we're introduced to Bing were among the most off-putting sections of the novel.

I loooved our protagonist Vic McQueen. We follow her from childhood and into adulthood. She is probably the most nuanced and heavily flawed character I've read of. In the Author's Note following the audiobook, Joe Hill explained his dislike for stories where the heroes are double-do-gooders, or something like that, and how he sought to write realistic and flawed "good guys." He absolutely succeeded in my opinion, with Vic and the cast of side characters like Maggie Leigh and Lou Carmody. We are able to cheer them on as they succeed in things, and mourn as they make awful (but real) decisions.

I loved how absolutely off the concept of Christmas became as the book developed--kind of like if The Nightmare Before Christmas was rated R. Beyond the horrifying effects of Charlie Manx's powers, even something as simple as hearing Christmas music beyond the bounds of winter (a common occurrence during the story) became scary. I loved this line: "There was something awful about Christmas music when it was nearly summer. It was like a clown in the rain, with his makeup running."

Hill's dialogue was snappy and clever; his prose and descriptions were unique and often (positively) unconventional. And I absolutely loved his takes on imagination and the mind, as seen in the snippet I opened with, as well as this one:
 "Everyone lives in two worlds . . . There's the real world . . . But everyone also lives in the world inside their own head: An in-scape, a world of thought . . . Creative people . . . spend a lot of their time hanging out in their thought-world. Strong creatives though can use a knife to cut the stitches between the two worlds, can bring them together."

The book can definitely get a little out there in some places, but I honestly think the weird served to its benefit. The only part that made me wince in a truly uncomfortable way was Hill referencing a few real-life tragedies to serve a scene where a character was becoming demented. I love a good corruption arc (such as in "Apt Pupil" by Stephen King), but I found the allusions to real tragedies a tad distasteful. Didn't ruin it for me at all, just something I didn't care for.

Overall one of the best audiobooks I've listened to, I absolutely have to hand it to Kate Mulgrew for knocking it OUT of the park with her narration. Manx's voice was gritty and cold, Bing's was off-putting and creepily child-like, and she did Maggie Leigh's stutter so well. Her children voices were well done too, and successfully creepy when necessary. Above all I have to appreciate how when a character was yelling, she yelled and didn't just whisper-yell like some narrators do. 

Solid book and sooolid audio 👌 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Gore, Sexual assault, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Abandonment

Minor: Body shaming, Domestic abuse, Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Suicidal thoughts, and Death of parent

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

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

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

boats's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This book really hit for me. It was a bit long but there's nothing I'd cut easily. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal death, Death, Gore, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child death, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Mental illness, Medical content, Car accident, and Death of parent

sxndaze's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense 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? It's complicated

3.25

It was early October, but in the strong, direct light of the morning sun, it was still warm. Fall was here, winter coming right behind it, but for now there was still a little good riding weather left.

a festive horror read! it dragged for me at parts tbh. i liked reading about vic discovering her abilities with the shorter way and those affects. 

hill writes complex relationships well when he has the time and space to flesh them out. i didn’t like her interactions with lou very much because there wasn’t much to like, but after wayne gets taken, their relationship feels so much more solid.

some hits and quite a few misses in here for me, but overall a good time (especially the last third)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Misogyny, Rape, and Sexism

itsyogirl's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Pedophilia