Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

26 reviews

blockingallexits's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious 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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Suicide, Violence, Sexual violence, Murder, Gun violence, Grief, Domestic abuse, and Suicidal thoughts

tbd24's review

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.0

First things first, if you haven’t read this book yet, check the trigger warnings bc hot damn. Literally everything is graphic.

I have a difficult time rating this because i feel like, technically, in some ways, it was a pretty good book. The writing was lush and evocative, and sense of horror well maintained and accentuated with moments of humor or banality or otherwise. However, I feel like the book had a lot of problems with realistic character choices. Tyler and Jaden are the only two people who feel like fully realized characters who have motive and personality and make wise and unwise choices. Every other named character makes choices that are convenient to the plot and every unnamed background character (the citizens of black springs, who seem to number in the thousands??) are just a faceless mass of mob mentality. I feel like the author spent little time convincing me that thousands of people would make the irrational choices they did, and more time moralizing that humanity is stupid and hopeless and violent. I am already biased against this opinion so i guess take this with a grain of salt. The last 25% of the book is just hitting you over the head with “people are stupid and violent and humanity sucks”, down to steve’s final decision to

let his wife and son die in a fire for literally no reason, after already realizing that Catherine had no power over the situation

. I understand this is a horror novel but it’s just truly boring to me when authors act like the end is fated and don’t even bother to make the characters choices make sense.

Beyond this, the main problem I had throughout the whole book was the authors blatant sexism. The only woman in this book with anything like power or agency was the literal witch, who’s literally wrapped in chains with her mouth and eyes sewn shut. Every description of a woman fell neatly into category of “ugly old hag”, “mom”, or “sexual object with no personality”.  Not even any bitches! Sometimes women would cross contaminate, and be an ugly old hag who was at least worth it for the tits, or a mom who still put out every night for her husband. Even in moments when it made absolutely no sense, the author found a way to get a woman naked (ie;

the head council guy groping Griselda bizarrely, Jocelyn having a hallucination of being fucked by a boar, or the fact that she was inexplicably naked at the end???? literally why was she naked???

). Obviously the first red flags were that none of Tyler’s friends were girls, and Matt apparently had no friends, and all of the adult women were hysterical and/or completely reliant on their husbands, but I was lulled into a sense of hope by  Catherine being possibly powerful and maybe secretly the moral was that people discredit women but noooo the author made sure to remind you that catherine was a woman with tits too. Like, it was so jarring every time it happens bc I’d be immersed in a tense scene and then completely taken out because the author just HAD to mention boobies RIGHT NOW ( I literally laughed out loud at

the jocelyn/boar scene, i was so excited to have a moment of her pov and her taking action but nope fucked by a boar and as soon as she finds a man she becomes completely feeble again

). I just quite literally felt like the author never imagined anyone but a white cis man reading his book. I don’t even want to talk about Griselda. 

Anyway yeah I think that’s it. Some very stunning moments of evocative writing. Some equally stunning moments of sexism, nihilism, and general senseless violence. Not really my thing

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Murder, Animal cruelty, Child death, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Xenophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Racism, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Rape, Religious bigotry, Self harm, Sexual harassment, Suicide, Medical trauma, Pandemic/Epidemic, Blood, Gore, Child abuse, Death, Grief, Islamophobia, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Torture, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Fatphobia, Excrement, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Suicide attempt, and Violence

arlettep's review

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Sexual assault, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Hate crime, Animal death, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Racial slurs

postmortem's review

dark 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Suicidal thoughts, Murder, Sexual assault, Body horror, Child death, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, Sexual harassment, and Violence

Moderate: Toxic friendship, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Islamophobia, Racism, Religious bigotry, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Alcohol

marina_michelle's review

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicide, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Torture, Violence, Death, Gore, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Toxic friendship, Vomit, Suicidal thoughts, Animal death, Child death, Child abuse, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Bullying, Racism, Body horror, Car accident, and Sexism

carolineberry12's review

dark mysterious sad tense medium-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

4.0

This book was truly a wild ride. I can see the author taking me on a wild ride and I can also see his not so subtle commentary on humanity.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Religious bigotry, Rape, Murder, Misogyny, Police brutality, Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicide attempt, Suicide, and Suicidal thoughts

danicaleblanc's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Body horror

Moderate: Animal death

connorjdaley's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

My fiancé suggesting I listen to this because we are both from The Hudson River Valley, which is this novel’s setting. I was a bit surprised by this choice, as this novel is the author’s English language debut, and the setting is pretty damn accurate. I wonder if he lives there now? 

I listened to this on my way home to see my parents. Highland Mills, Central Valley, and Harriman we’re mentioned by name more than once, and all three are directly connected to my home town of 22 years, Monroe. West Point Military Academy, as well as 9W through Cornwall, Bear Mountain, and the novel’s featured hospital, St. Luke’s in Newburgh, are all places I’ve frequented as well. It was super cool and kind of eerie to read a novel like this about where I’m from. 

The town of Black Spring has a problem, what kind of old town doesn’t? This town’s problem just happens to be a 17th century immortal witch named Katherine. Since they were able to sew her eyes and mouth shut she hasn’t been too much of a problem, just creepy. And luckily she never breaks from her current schedule… 

So because I always listen to an audio and read a physical book at the same time, I had this really unique experience of reading these two very similar scenes in two drastically different novels within like an hour of each other. Both this novel and C.V. Hunt’s ‘Halloween Fiend’ feature a fall festival that isn’t really dedicated to their town’s (I’ll say) affliction, but at the same time kind of is. It was cool to see how each framed how their town responded to what they had been forced to accept as normal over time. 

The climax of this novel does some really interesting things in its depiction of the degradation of humanity. Is it the witch causing it, or the town itself? Either way, they so easily are lead to depravity. Brothers, sisters, mothers, husbands…no one is safe and everyone is guilty. 

Personally a 4/5*. Spooky, atmospheric, dark. It looks like there’s a sequel to this but it’s only available in Dutch? I’m confused. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child death, Death, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Animal death, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Kidnapping, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, Suicide, and Violence

entityj's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Murder, Physical abuse, Rape, Religious bigotry, Self harm, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Torture, Violence, Bullying, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Confinement

Minor: Vomit, Islamophobia, and Alcohol

winters's review

dark sad medium-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Murder, Suicide, Animal death, and Violence

Moderate: Sexual assault, Domestic abuse, and Physical abuse