Reviews with content warning for Gaslighting - Täällä oli susia

Reviews tagging 'Gaslighting'

Täällä oli susia by Charlotte McConaghy

30 reviews

any_bethany's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful inspiring medium-paced

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

4.25

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ashleysbookthoughts's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

My IRL book club read this and overall, we really enjoyed it. I loved that I was immediately immersed in the story. It had short chapters (thank goodness!) and was a fast-paced, propulsive read. After struggling for weeks to be gripped by a book, I was so grateful to actually want to read. That alone left me feeling overwhelmingly positive about the book, and upon finishing, I rated it pretty highly. But then the more I thought about it, the more there were elements that really didn’t work for me.

The wolves are excellent and are some of the best characters in the book. The human characters weren’t always well fleshed-out and their relationships didn’t always make a ton of sense (there seemed to be more telling than showing of the fact that characters cared for each other). The main character has a rare neurological condition that is mentioned constantly, but doesn’t really seem to add anything to the book. Finally, the ending is kind of a mess and way too rushed to really make sense of anything. However, overall, the book was a compelling, mostly satisfying read. I prefer Migrations, but I’ll continue reading McConaghey’s work. Lots of content warnings in this one though.

CW: animal death, gore, murder, sexual assault, abusive relationship, dementia, domestic violence

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dustghosts's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

2.75

+ Beautifully written; McConaghy knows how to construct gorgeous, evocative sentences and scenes. I think this shines the most in her nature writing and an awe towards that subject resonates. There’s a lot of tenderness towards people and humans alike. The ending aside, the majority of the book struck emotionally true, even if not always relatable and often? Messy.

o An interesting and complicated array of characters who feel frustratingly human, though not necessarily… like “rational” humans. Despite not necessarily liking them, I found most of the people here to be engaging, and I think the mystery/thriller aspect of the story worked well because of this.

- Themes are muddy at best and troubling at the least favorable. This book covers a lot of ground (domestic abuse, the gray areas of morality, the human-animal conflict inherent in rewilding/conservation, codependency and shared-but-not trauma, the echoes of inaction, and so on) and doesn’t really strike true on most of them. A book doesn’t have to have a clear thesis but you could feel this one trying to get to it— there’s moralizing but no moral.
- While domestic and sexual violence are definitely key themes, the most direct victims of it are sidelined and written out of the story. It’s troubling to me to see Aggie and Lanie disappear from the narrative (one very literally) and for the arguable two main characters (and love interests) to be the two people cast as their could-be (but failed?) saviors.

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alexisgarcia's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

i absolutely loved this. i had no idea what to expect going in and i think that is the best way to read this. the sisters' relationship was amazing, the plot was well-rounded and fulfilled, and the ending was perfect.

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archaicrobin's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense 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

5.0

Inti loves her wolves and her sister and not much else until she begins a project in the Scottish Highlands to re-forest the area by introducing wolves. Two stories are going at once as Inti alternates between the present time, dealing with angry locals and the past about her sister’s abusive husband and the terror he caused them both.

This was beautifully written and powerful. I loved this one, even when I had to put it down because it can be a lot.

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mellowreading's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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_inge's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

3.5 stars. This read like a Gothic novel, there was a dark, tense atmosphere throughout. The characters were morally grey in a believable way and the decor was set really well. I actually liked how it showed women who lived with traumas and how that changed their perspective of men as a whole, it was interesting to see the other side to that for a change. I liked the conversations about rewilding projects too. So overall this was an enjoyable read. It simply didn’t blow me away.

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