Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero

49 reviews

tarsharks's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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

3.75

Scooby Doo x Lovecraft was an interesting premise that I have not seen before. The first part of the book was a little slow and hard to get into but once all the action started I couldn't put the book down! A big complaint I have is the random format switching. Even in the middle of a conversation it will go from script style to tradtional novel and I found it to be very jarring. Overall I thought the book was ok and felt like he could have done more.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Gore, Mental illness, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Drug abuse

dexkit10's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Cursing, Homophobia, and Injury/Injury detail

madladhatter's review against another edition

adventurous 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cursing and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Drug abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, and Kidnapping

gingertyperior's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious fast-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

4.0

While it speeds up almost too much in its final act, Meddling Kids is a fascinating look into what happens when our YA heroes grow up without sacrificing what makes stories like them interesting in the first place. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide

Moderate: Mental illness

Minor: Animal death

disnelyse's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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? It's complicated

5.0

It gives such Scooby Doo meets Stephen King's IT vibes and I love it

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Mental illness, and Violence

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, and Transphobia

courtwj's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

3.25

Interesting premise and mythology but terrible LGBTQIA+ rep and distracting writing style at times.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Lesbophobia, and Injury/Injury detail

matcha_cat's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny medium-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault

Moderate: Mental illness, Violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Death, Drug abuse, Misogyny, Suicide, Blood, Kidnapping, and Fire/Fire injury

heathengray's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

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

3.5

About 3/4 into this book, I was prepared to give it 4.5/5 or higher. I was thoroughly enjoying its pace, characters, and (lazy attempts to use present tense movie script style dialogue to convey immediacy aside) the writing style. Here you have a legitimate attempt to bring Scooby-Do into the modern era, almost blending it with the plot of Stephen King's It, and then it just stopped being as fun any more.

While being a little silly in homage to its Hanna Barbera roots, the book does attempt some realism, grounding the crew of the Mystery Machine in the real world. For example, one character cannot fly in a plane because they escaped jail, and airports use federal databases, but later the cops take the not-so-teenage detectives at their word with little evidence when

evacuating two towns and a city may be required

. The realism definitely takes a nose dive towards the end, and it does not help with the tension. Also, while written in a modern, quippy way, I felt the book took too many liberties with it's nods to the fourth wall, assuming I knew all the references it threw at me. I knew enough of them to know that some could be quite anachronistic for a person in 1990 to reference, thereby dating the book even more, and anchoring it to references of the 2000s.

Otherwise I found the main characters a delight to be around, if a bit too Mary Sue, none of them excelling in life after their days of teenage adventure, but all of them well equipped to handle obstacles thrown at them. The antagonist disappointingly lacked any real motivation. 

You may see other reviewers tag this book with

transphobia, but without spoiling it, it isn't done with malice, nor does the author dead name or anything - that person is that person as they are in the current narrative of the book, and they have a compelling reason for being trans, though they probably wouldn't agree with the nomenclature

.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Mental illness and Suicide

One of the characters spends his time at mental institutions, another kills themselves

_readerfromtheblacklagoon_'s review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Cursing, Death, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Blood, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

brichneyfloss's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Mental illness, and Murder