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Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Model Home by Rivers Solomon

16 reviews

yrioona's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Absolutely gorgeous prose telling a gripping, gut-wrenching, genre-transcending story. Works equally well as a horror novel and as a novel about real-life horrors. Something about the way Rivers Solomon writes is just totally engrossing to me.  Such a brilliant, fucked up, chilling, moving, story full of complicated and multi-layered characters.
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biolumi221's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious sad 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? No

2.0

Have you ever sensed that if you and the author were both students in a college creative writing class, the author would spend the entire time arguing with the professor and prevent other students from getting critiques on their work? That was this book for me. A very interesting premise that did not (again, for ME) pay off in the end. Rated 2 stars for some very well-written and evocative turns of phrase.
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rachaelwho's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-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

3.5

I didn't *like* the beginning, but I understood why it was so... Impressionistic? So I kept with it. I liked the middle and thought this would be a 4 or better even though it wasn't quite my cup of tea. And then we got to the last third, where the supervillain tells James Bond his whole evil plan. Did the author (or maybe their editor?) really think it wasn't clear what was happening?
I had it about 70-80% sorted when they alluded to having constant UTIs as a child, and I clearly was meant to notice that. Why not trust me to notice it??
It was the weirdest combination of telegraphed from miles away, over-explained, and very muddled; it didn't make sense. 

Voice acting was VERY good. But I'm puzzled at Elijah not being portrayed with a British accent when the text pretty much says she has one, and Elijah's mum was read with a perfectly fine English accent. Still-- excellent performance.
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nadiarausa's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

It’s difficult to review this book without spoiling anything, so I’ll just say this: The prose is utterly gorgeous and haunting—Rivers Solomon is an absolutely incredible writer and storyteller.

This could definitely be a triggering book, so please read with care! I didn’t find anything overly graphic or explicit, but there are definitely some disturbing things that occur. The trigger warnings in the “graphic” section I included were because they were themes throughout the story. 
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packrat00's review against another edition

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

5.0

This book is strange and fucked up and made me hold my breath throughout. I read it in less than 24 hours and couldn’t put it away and every free minute I caught myself reading another chapter. It’s thrilling and sad and I should not recommend reading it but I absolutely would. It’s not for the faint of heart. 
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melimelon1313's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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flyle's review against another edition

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Written in a weird flowery unnatural way. Also MC kills a dog to write a poem in its blood around page 50. Seems to be for shock value. Nothing worth continuing reading for. Didn’t find it interesting or enjoyable enough to get past that.
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youshouldreadthisif's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-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

5.0

🏠 Am I glad I read it? My first Rivers Solomon read delivers a wallop that I gladly accepted. 
 
That this is a book about contemporary racism in the American South is obvious. But as a reader who enjoys thematic explorations of family dynamics, I cannot help but point out that as much as this is a book about the explicit racism experienced by Ezri’s family in this rich, white Dallas suburb, it is equally about the intergenerational effects of such trauma. 
 
“But it lived in them still, that past, the way these things do.” 
 
Ezri’s parents sought to escape the conditions of their own childhoods and make something better for their own children, but it’s not so easy to separate yourself from those kinds of things and the way they shape your psychology and your actions. Mother (God) did so much harm to her children by insisting they stay in that gated community, that house that was the manifestation of her ego and her fantasies of wealth and privilege, that terrified her children so much. Mother (God) couldn’t let go of something false at the expense of her (children’s) life, her (children’s) freedom. History is a psychological cage. 
 
It was this aspect of MODEL HOME’s exploration of racism that I found most interesting. 
 
🏠 Rating: 🖤 (loved) 
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gdulecki's review against another edition

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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

5.0

🫨🫨🫨 WHAT!!! I am not usually a horror guy, but I was hooked by this. Exploring trauma and cptsd through a haunted house??? I think Rivers Solomon did an incredible job of writing this in a way that embodies the chaos of unpacking trauma and ~remembering~ what our brains have blocked out. I am in shambles after everything came together at the end, and while I had suspicions of some of that reveal this story really kept me on my toes. WOW. 
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jaselah's review against another edition

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dark emotional inspiring sad tense fast-paced

5.0

First book of 2025 and WOW. I literally TORE through this book and finish it in a couple of hours. There were many parts that made me very uncomfortable and it could be triggering for many people but overall the book is amazing.
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