Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets

60 reviews

cady_sass's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.25

This is a fascinating topic but the execution is just okay. The author ends the book by stating clearly that while the novel is entirely fictional, the similarities to actual happenings is on purpose and goes on to list many, many sources about real life content moderators and legal action taken against Facebook. Unfortunately, I feel that those articles would be more interesting. The entire premise revolves around the idea that our main protagonist does not want any involvement in legal action against her former employer and promises the reader we will come to understand why. Well, I don’t. I think you just wrote 100 pages about getting dumped while you worked a shitty job. 

If this is supposed to be horror, it didn’t go far enough. If this is supposed to be social commentary, it’s too weird and the focus is placed on the wrong parts of the story. In my humble opinion this could’ve used another 100 or so pages and have one of the characters really, truly fall off their rocker.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Hate crime, Infidelity, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Antisemitism, Stalking, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

kmsander4's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

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

2.0

TikTok told me that this book was messed up and would disturb me. I thought the concept was really interesting and I do think it skimmed the surface of some tough topics that really do need to be explored, but because it is just a novella, everything felt rushed and I left the book unsatisfied.

We have become highly desensitized in the online world - and maybe that's part of the message here - but I think SO MUCH more could have been done with this topic.

If you're looking for a quick read, you could pick it up but watch for trigger warnings and I wouldn't come in with high expectations.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, Antisemitism, and Murder

elwhits's review against another edition

challenging dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• 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, Child abuse, Child death, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Violence

Moderate: Homophobia, Racial slurs, and Antisemitism

mermaidsherbet's review against another edition

challenging dark tense fast-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Toxic relationship, Antisemitism, and Alcohol

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Stalking, and Injury/Injury detail

chadcloete's review against another edition

challenging dark medium-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Gore, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Cultural appropriation, Toxic friendship, Sexual harassment, and War

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Antisemitism

scheller_bg31's review against another edition

dark reflective medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Incest, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Trafficking, Mass/school shootings, Cannibalism, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

mmccombs's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

3.0

This was… a novella. Interesting concept but just not enough substance. Wish there was a bit more time to really flesh out the questions and themes that came up, and to kind of justify the gruesomeness of it all.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Homophobia, Self harm, Sexual content, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail

westcdf's review against another edition

challenging dark tense fast-paced

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

4.0

This book was really good, it has a very shocking ending. I will say that I didn't particularly love the narrating style, it felt a little gimmicky. I do think the overall plot was excellent and the development of the characters was great. Made me feel queasy after I read it. Check the TWs for sure. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Antisemitism, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

A very triggering read. The content they discuss moderating is somewhat disturbing. Plot contains clear sexual abuse.

inamerata's review against another edition

challenging dark fast-paced

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

1.0

This book asks bold questions, like "is it worse if your PTSD turns you into a nazi or a rapist?" and "would that be fucked up or what?"

It reads quickly. It has an interesting premise and some technically competent foreshadowing. Even a few clever paragraphs. But that's the limit of my praise. The framing device makes increasingly little sense, the random details felt meaningless too often, the twists undermined the story, and the ending is abrupt and unsatisfying.

Presumably, Bervoets is trying to comment how all the characters' morals eroded in different ways, but the execution is stupid.

"Oh, Sigrid is an antisemitic conspiracy theorist and fascist/apologist but she was right that Kayleigh is abusive and obsessive. Kayleigh is the only one to unequivocally speak up against Holocaust denial, but she did assault Sigrid and broke into a dead teenager's house because she is also delusional. So there's points on both sides and we'll explicitly end showing Sigrid in the right and Kayleigh in the wrong." Come on.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm and Antisemitism

Moderate: Sexual assault and Suicide

Minor: Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Homophobia, Misogyny, Racism, and Death of parent

By its nature, many awful things are brought up and even said by the main characters. In addition, Kayleigh is a lesbian and revealed to be an abusive, obsessive, delusional stalker who sexually harassed and assaulted her girlfriend, and breaks into a dead teenager's room after their breakup because she's just so #crazy. Sigrid is a bisexual woman who is a bigoted, gullible idiot and it's hinted she cheated with her ex-boyfriend. They're not supposed to be good people, but the facts remain.

chaos_and_chapters's review against another edition

challenging dark informative tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Murder, Lesbophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail