Reviews with content warning for Animal cruelty - Mary: An Awakening of Terror

Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

Mary: An Awakening of Terror by Nat Cassidy

72 reviews

sbv_96's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Loveable characters? It's complicated

5.0

I will probably come back to this and add a more thorough review but this book left me speechless. The audiobook especially is a must read.

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ncullin's review

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dark emotional medium-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

5.0

Excellent horror. Complex, thought-provoking themes.

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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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camilleleon'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? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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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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hixxie25's review

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Stopped at the "sacrificial" cactus scene because I didn't want to hear it and it wasn't even necessary to the plot.

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deelynn84's review

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dark mysterious tense slow-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

This was a wild read for sure.

I was intrigued and enjoyed reading a few chapters each day to see what literary insanity was waiting for me.

The concept - I love. Any chance to see a fanciful depiction of female rage, I’m up for it. And to see a focus on an aging woman, coping with societal invisibility? Even better.

But there were a few things that fell apart for me.

So many things were part of the backstory of the “events” (supernatural, ghosts, reincarnation, mythology) but then seemed to be flippantly excused away toward the end (or some of them were??)

Ugh, poor Nancy - I feel most for her. And I could do without a wisecrack from Nadine for a long time 🫠

I also took issue with the theme of menopause/aging as a woman - it just didn’t land with me as well as I think it could have. I believe authors should write about whatever they want, but I do feel like the authenticity and conviction might have been stronger if the book had been authored by a woman 🤷‍♀️

Still, a decent horror read that kept me engaged!

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nvadnais's review

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dark tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This book is going to be for people who enjoy the horror genre so be aware of that if you pick it up. It can also be graphic in parts too. I really enjoyed the whole story of the character building, the changes in life cycle and ideas of usefulness after menopause and aging. I felt like reading this book as a woman that explored women's issues written by a man, he did the story and concept justice. I felt like he had done his research and I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I did not experience any moments where I was like..."that's not how that works" which was really refreshing when reading fiction about women. Overall the best horror book I've read this year and will be looking into more of Nats titles.

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jcliff's review

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dark emotional funny tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

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