Reviews with content warning for Gore - El sótano

I finished this book in a couple hours, I do not feel like it was “slow paced” as it’s categorized. I hated reading from Lewis’s perspective, he’s super boring- but I also get why his perspective was important to the story. It was fine, I guess?
I wish that for such a *heavy* plot it had a little more character development & soul. It felt more like reading someone else’s story about a horrible thing than actually feeling it from inside the cellar- from the girl’s perspectives. Like there was so much blood, gore, assault, & shock value on top that it didn’t bother diving any deeper. I wanna know more about the girls, we get summer’s perspective of living with them for nearly a full year & still know almost nothing about them.

Content Warnings

katleyn16's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

Content Warnings

taliatalksbooks's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

3.5

The Cellar by Natasha Preston was heartbreaking and full of suspense. I don’t find myself to be easily triggered, but even I had moments of severe discomfort while reading this book, so I want to make it very clear that if you’re considering reading it, definitely check out the content warnings before you do. This story is creepy and though it makes an important point to stare on multiple occasions how wrong it is, there is a lot of uncomfortable content here given that our main character is only 16/17 and the man who kidnaps her is in his 30s. I think this content is so unsettling because it isn’t watered down and it isn’t presented to make it palatable. It’s supposed to make you uncomfortable because of how awful the situation is, and it does that almost too well. This book is really fast-paced, and while the timeline gets a little confusing jumping back and forth while chasing perspectives, it was still an enjoyable read. I don’t honk it is my favorite by Preston, but it certainly was a dark, psychological suspense worth reading if you can get past the content warnings.

Content Warnings