Reviews tagging 'Torture'

The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay

24 reviews

itzbrianna's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.25

The Cabin at the End of the World is a tense and complex tale of how choice, grief, and our beliefs can affect our lives. Tremblay does a fantastic job setting up the story and showing the differences of the world he’s building through a child’s eyes vs an adults. He is a master word smith with beautiful sentences woven to create poetic and meaningful stories for his characters. 

There are several things Tremblay does well aside from his way with words. He is skilled at forcing the reader to reflect on the choices being presented to the characters causing them to analyze their own beliefs and choices they make or would make in a similar situation. He also does a great job of weaving in religion without it being preachy and instead focuses the questions on each character’s actions instead. 

I enjoyed most of this story and loved how reflective it was from beginning to end. There were some things Tremblay could’ve done better though. The story is slow, which isn’t a problem in this case, but in certain parts the story is too slow with unnecessary descriptors that took me out of the story. There is a lot from this book that could’ve been cut to make the impact on us (the reader) stronger. Also the switch in POVs was sometimes jarring, but I get what the author was trying to do with that. It just could’ve been done better. 

There is an event that happens which is a turning point in the story. After this moment, the novel starts to drag only finally picking back up when it’s almost the end. I think having the characters be two gay men with an adopted daughter was a perfect choice. And the differences between Andrew and Eric are apparent throughout the story. The most impactful part for me was the last few pages. I literally wept at the end, snot and hiccuping and everything. 

I would recommend this book as it has beautiful imagery and is fun to analyze with friends or with a book club. The overarching plot is entertaining and I personally think the payoff is worth it. But I guess it just depends on how you’re interpreting the story. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Suicide, Grief, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Misogyny and Medical trauma

nhammy's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Cursing, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, and Murder

caroline_123's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Suicide attempt, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

danibee's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

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

3.5

I thought this was so chilling! It was a quick read but certainly not for everyone. I like how the author uses very intentional symbolism (hint: pay attention to the color yellow). This is the second book by Paul Tremblay I’ve read, and I think I liked A Head Full of Ghosts more. There is some weird POVs in this book, but they were mostly successful and clear although I did get confused at some points. Over all, if you like horror and don’t have any upcoming glamping plans, The Cabin at the End of the World is worth a read! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Homophobia, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail

emilyddd123's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense slow-paced

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

4.0

The first scenes were tense and gripping. Sort of lost its pace near the middle, but it was still interesting. Lots of graphic violence. Reflective ending. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Torture, Violence, Blood, and Grief

books_hay's review against another edition

challenging emotional sad tense slow-paced

• 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? No

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Torture, Kidnapping, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Violence, and Vomit

heartachesbi's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Hate crime, Homophobia, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Torture, Excrement, and Vomit

cassie7e's review against another edition

dark sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.5

3 stars (Rating might be higher if I was a regular horror/slasher fan)

I very much prefer psychological or gothic thrillers to the pure horror genre, and didn't quite know what I was getting into with this one. On top of that, this book is one massive example of the Trolley Problem, except that it's unclear if the consequences are real. The book does a great job of lending credibility to both possibilities and favoring neither. But gives hs absolutely no reason why the predicament exists in the first place or why the solutions would solve it. Felt very shallow and I didn't really care what happened to the characters besides Wen. The ending was not very satisfying to me and normally I don't mind open endings. Perhaps all this is why I didn't find all the violence and threats compelling. But also pleasant to read a story with normalized queer rep.

I strongly disliked Amy Landon's narration performance. Dialogue sounded stilted and over-voiced, over-serious, over-monotonous. Some of this was her struggling to do male voices, but some of this was a strange tone used for the whole text. This is not a book to listen to on audio for this reason.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Hate crime, Homophobia, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Torture and Pandemic/Epidemic

_morgreads's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

1.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Murder, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

spaceykate's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

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

1.0

honestly i fucking hated this book. nonsensical killing, bizarre author notes that make me think too many people were given participation awards as young children who should've been told to stop being so psychopathic instead (

who the fuck says they wanted to make sure when they shot a child in the face they didn't want to make it an emotional highkey moment? a legit psychopath. sick in the head.

), and pages and pages of background / environmental descriptors that made me flash back to skipping like 40 pages of frankenstein because it's was just all. descriptions. of. landscape. i don't need to know about the wood of the floor. i don't need to know about the blanket they brought from home, especially since it CLEARLY doesn't hold significance to the characters in its use. even the whole

four horsemen shirt colors and relatedish plagues

felt cheaply done, like paint on a pig. the only thing i liked in the entire thing was a fucking side note the author made:

the yellow lamp running bit

. made me sick to read it, because it really channeled this vibe that the author has no value of human life and that's yeah pretty sickening. but great read if you like that sort of thing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Blood, and Murder

Minor: Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, and Torture