Reviews tagging 'Bullying'

Mary: An Awakening of Terror by Nat Cassidy

87 reviews

kyrstin_p1989's review

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

3.5

Full of all the best things for a horror novel — murder, gore, cultish religion, kidnapping, insanity. This book was gross but kept my attention. Horror isn’t my favorite genre but I did enjoy this during Halloween creepy season. 

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platypusinrainboots's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny 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

4.5


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jenlengland's review against another edition

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

3.25


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rachelunabridged's review

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dark mysterious 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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stlspoox's review

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

5.0

Every woman over 40 should read this book. I wish I could rate it a hundred gold stars.

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yanamool's review

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challenging dark mysterious slow-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

3.0

Interesting book with lots of themes

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eerieehobbit's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0


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readbooksovermygrave's review

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

4.0


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sspaghettiboness's review

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dark mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

While I felt tortured a bit by the fact that my own menopause is in the future (about 25 years but, still, it will happen), I have a lot of good to say about this book.

The pacing between reflection and gory horror is so, so well done. I think a lot of authors struggle with finding a balance, and Mary makes it seem effortless. It progresses the plot at a much quicker pace than I had expected based on past reads.

Horror and gore are here in spades. Like. Pure splatterpunk. I’d be curious to know what books the author would say influenced him. The authors note at the end said he had been working on this novel since he was 13 years old, and it shows.

The way Cassidy used the senses in her writing is so smart. It focuses predominantly on the visuals, and involves the rest as necessary. Some books feel like they’re trying too hard to incorporate smells and onomatopoeias and touch.. Cassidy  used scents, for example, that are common and easily identified instead of obscure and esoteric odours.

What stops me from giving this book 5 stars is that the plot doesn’t really appeal to me. I couldn’t relate to any characters with my own experience; so it was hard for me to root for anyone, but the prose is so gorgeous I couldn’t put it down.

If you like this, highly recommend Nightbitch, which is a completely different book, but still delves into the disgusting side of the female experience and resulting feminine rage. 

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turtle_puff95's review

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challenging dark tense slow-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

1.0

For being so highly rated, I really didn't like this. It has a grungy, grubby feeling the whole way through. If that was the intent of the atmosphere, the author nailed it. This book just felt dirty.
Mary loses her job and gets a call from her Aunt (nasty woman) that she hates. She goes to live with her for a bit and sort of find herself. What she finds is she can see dead woman all over town and finds more and more of her memories that she's forgotten.
Turns out, she is the reincarnation of a serial killer who was a worshipped cult leader. The cult pretty much just kills a few women every year for the heck of it. Mary finds a way to fight back against the killer inside of her and kill him, leaving just herself, reborn as her own person now, no longer controlled by the killer. And she also befriends the dead women, takes them to live with her in New York and occasionally let's them kill people. But hey. At least she likes herself now.

Eye roll. This was slow moving, and even through the horror elements I became bored. This went a totally different direction than I imagined and not in a good way. As soon as the cult showed up I was ready to DNF. I was just too far in to not know what happened.
As far as horror books go, you can skip this one. You aren't missing much.

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