KotiRyhmätKeskusteluLisääAjan henki
Etsi sivustolta
Tämä sivusto käyttää evästeitä palvelujen toimittamiseen, toiminnan parantamiseen, analytiikkaan ja (jos et ole kirjautunut sisään) mainostamiseen. Käyttämällä LibraryThingiä ilmaiset, että olet lukenut ja ymmärtänyt käyttöehdot ja yksityisyydensuojakäytännöt. Sivujen ja palveluiden käytön tulee olla näiden ehtojen ja käytäntöjen mukaista.

Tulokset Google Booksista

Pikkukuvaa napsauttamalla pääset Google Booksiin.

Ladataan...

Possess

Tekijä: Gretchen McNeil

JäseniäKirja-arvostelujaSuosituimmuussijaKeskimääräinen arvioMaininnat
2812993,417 (3.7)4
Enlisted to help in dangerous cases of demonic possession, a teenaged exorcist discovers a race of part-demons intent on raising their forefathers to the earth in human form.
-
Ladataan...

Kirjaudu LibraryThingiin nähdäksesi, pidätkö tästä kirjasta vai et.

Ei tämänhetkisiä Keskustelu-viestiketjuja tästä kirjasta.

» Katso myös 4 mainintaa

Näyttää 1-5 (yhteensä 29) (seuraava | näytä kaikki)
I'm a little late to this party, but I finally got around to reading Possess! Which I'm not sure what I thought this book was about, but I had no idea it involved fallen angels, demon kings and priests.

Once I started Possess I couldn't stop. The book was creepy; not scary-creepy, but oh man please don't tell me what's happening is really happening creepy. Like with Bridget's friend Peter. How his story eventually turns out I won't spoil, but you can see it building almost from the first time he appears. And given everything that was happening to Bridget I can understand why she kept brushing it off as 'weird', but it felt under developed. We didn't get to know Peter as a person before everything hit the fan, so when it played out I sort of shrugged and wondered why Bridget didn't notice more.

I liked that we saw Matt and Bridget's friendship sort of rekindle simply because he persisted in trying to protect her. He's not quite stalking her, though Bridget certainly makes it sound like he is (his dad is a police officer and old friend of Bridget's father). Bridget insisted to him she was okay, but her body language (and tone of voice) sent a different message.

Hector and Brad were good secondary foils, while Bridget's mother seemed to suffer from the same problem Buffy's did (in that she noticed Bridget's "bad behavior" but didn't try to understand it) and I think, but I can't be sure, Sammy was meant to be autistic in some manner. Its never directly said, just mainly how Bridget dealt with him, his reactions and the over protectiveness of their mother.

Honestly this felt more like the beginning to a series than a stand alone novel. There's quite a bit left sort of ambiguous--the Darlingtons for instance, and while there was a closure to the mystery I didn't feel satisfied at the end like I should have.

This is really more of a 3.5 for me, but the creep factor (especially in the doll store) was enough to earn this four stars. ( )
  lexilewords | Dec 28, 2023 |
What if removing demons made you horny + bad mental illness rep?

Wasn't thrilled by the bad DID and schizophrenia representation and how harmful it was. Gee, a schizophrenic character in a murder mystery, can't imagine who the killer is.

I'm so tired of schizophrenia and DID being connected to serial killers. It's a terrible stigma.

Extremely campy but at moments it had interesting ideas like merging the dead dad and cat into one being.
I think that honestly if they had played into the idea of the pet and the dad merged together and how she sees both her pet and then notices it has the eyes of her dad and the dad is part of it, this would be a great horror. It's something that stuck in my mind when I read it it would be so creepy if the dad was just talking in the cat's body and she had to handle both of the losses and the returning of both of them but only the dad and he's not even in his body.

Most people who have had their parents die or even grandparents can affirm that having a parent return can be both the most terrifying thing and the most upsetting thing, it awakens all of the grief and all of the loss anew. It's a sudden gut punch. It makes you feel devastated and also reminds you of just how much time has gone by. If they had focused on that I would have really enjoyed this scene and really indulged in reading the book more than just reading it casually instead of enjoying it.

I am very upset this wasn't a bigger thing.

A cat appearing with human eyes could have been one of the greatest scenes and carried this book but instead it just really doesn't go anywhere and I want to repeatedly say, this scene could have been the entire book plot and the book focus and I would have loved it. Just coming to terms with that sharp stab of renewed grief.

The plot is a bit too... Confusing. Confusing isn't the right word, the plot is very horny. Exorcisms feel very pleasurable. I don't know what to do with that information. I feel like I wanted to point out the incest with the autistic-coded brother but it felt too weird to bring up earlier. But if exorcisms are pleasurable for her and she exorcises her brother, uhhh.

Um.

How about no.

And then I took the ending as she's coming to terms with masturbating is okay. After the stuff with her brother? Nope.

I'm being smart. I'm tapping out.

I'd honestly put this at a 1.5 star rating.
It's not really worth committing to but it's also not the worst thing. It's just unoriginal with random flecks of ideas I wish were in a better book. ( )
  Yolken | Feb 10, 2023 |
I have very mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, I really liked this story, the plot was exciting and suspenseful and the mythology that drove the plot was incredibly intriguing. I enjoyed learning about the watchers and the emmim, the mythology behind their existence was absolutely compelling. It kept me wanting to know more about them and their history. This was a book that I wanted to keep reading, despite its flaws. The action and suspense were enough to keep me fully engaged in the story even when I was annoyed with some of, what I felt to be, the weaker aspects of the book.

The scene opened on the heroine attending and assisting with an exorcism. This certainly set the tone for the exciting premise. The demons were strange and otherworldly, and very cleverly written. The exorcisms may have, at times, lacked the feel of authenticity, but they were still fascinating to witness, especially the way main character, Bridget, interacted with the demons. The two priests that were also attending the exorcisms and advising Bridget were such shady characters, I didn't know which one I distrusted more. The byplay between them effectively communicated the tense relationships between themselves and Bridget.

Where I sometimes lost patience with Possess was in the dialog and the characters. One of the most important factors in a book, for me, is the way the characters interact with one another. So, when the dialog is weak, or cheesy, or overdone, it takes a lot away from the story itself. In Possess, it was clearly the intention to make Bridget a snarky, angsty teen, which in itself can be tedious to read. The problem I had with this was that any time she was speaking, whether it be internally or in conversation, there was either a flippant remark or a "poor me" whiny pout. I felt like it was completely overdone and decreased my enjoyment of the book.

As a main character, I thought Bridget was a whiny, sarcastic, clueless nitwit. I don't understand why the hints were presented so that the reader understood them, but apparently Bridget did not. It made me feel frustrated with her ineffectiveness as the main character. I also hated the way she treated her "friends" The snarky comments about one being fat, lazy, and gay were a bit over the top. Also, the fact that she didn't discourage the other "friend" who obviously had a huge crush on her, instead, she continued to ignore his hurt feelings as she became closer to another guy without ever addressing the issue or even attempting to salvage the friendship. There were many things like this that caused me to dislike Bridget as a main character.

I guess I will be one of the very few, it seems, that did not absolutely love Possess. It simply wasn't for me. I find it very difficult to enjoy a book if I do not like the main character. So, for me, I will be rating Possess a three, because while the plot was fast paced and exciting, the fact that I did not like the main character took much away from my overall enjoyment. ( )
  NCDonnas | Sep 24, 2013 |
I really like it.. for a debut novel. It borders Exorcist and Paul Wesley's Fallen,

But I do have a problem with american writers trying to do asian characters. Bridget Liu Yue Ling (proper nomenclature, not Yueling Liu.. sounds weird)may be a half chinese half irish girl but the book clearly confuses her. One thing, there's a lot of japanese references along the line with one hint of her ancestry. Liu had a LOT of variation and I would have reffed it to Liu Bei (Romance of the Three Kingdom) which would make sense than random jizz about serving the emperor. I know it was written with good intention, but I do wish the author could make a lot of side references and try not to introduce a character just for a sake that she's a classified minority in US and no books have mixed racial characters. A lot of things didn't make sense but its okay, since its not a stand-alone book. Atleast, its more bearable than reading weird americanized honorifics. ( )
  aoibhealfae | Sep 23, 2013 |
RATING: 2.5 stars-ish.

You know those books that are so beautiful you just have to have them? Yep, "Possessed" by Gretchen McNeil is one of those. The cover is gorgeous, with its shimmering blue color, the graphic work on the model's face, the simple but elegant lettering. I am a sucker for a pretty cover (lol). So I bought this. And since the story itself seemed quite gripping - not to mention the fact that lots of people seem to have loved the book - I thought I should give it a try.

It was a decent first effort, I'll recognize as much. And bonus points to the author for not falling into the usual romantic clichés: the insta-love and the love triangle. Plus, the idea was interesting enough, I suppose.

But (yes, there are a few buts)... it wasn't as good as it could have been. As I was reading, the word "disjointed" kept flashing in my mind. It's a good word to describe this book I think. There are too many random things happening in the book, situations seem to happen out of order or for no discernable reason and the characters are developed weirdly, in a way that makes them seem like completely different people in the end. No, I don't mean that they grow and develop, I mean they do things that are almost... out of character.

The plot was pretty predictable (the villain? Yeah, I knew who he was early on), even if the reader basically 'crashes' into the middle of the story and is treated to a few flashbacks that explain certain things that happened before. Basically, Bridget Liu has some strange 'powers' and is being coached on how to use them by a priest. Of course, as the book opens Bridget already dealt with all these issues so she's a ready-made heroine that jumps into the action five pages in. This did not work for me. It would have worked better if the book started with Bridget discovering her powers or if Bridget had known about them all along.

The way we're introduced to McNeil's (or Bridget's) world is too abrupt. The relationships and dynamics between all the important characters are already established (except for Father Santos) in a way that just didn't sit well with me. Alright, so it didn't bother me very much when I was reading about Hector's and Bridget's friendship because after all all teenagers have friends. It did bother me in the case of Bridget and Matt's relationship or Bridget and Monsignor Renault. These should have been explored differently.

Another aspect that kind of ruined the book for me: the romance. Okay, I said there was no insta-love, yes, but it was still a very 'out of the blue' kind of thing... Bridget goes from thinking her love interest is slightly annoying to loving him (yes, love).

Overall: "Possess" was by no means a bad read, but I was expecting more. It was, as I mentioned before, a little disjointed and even a bit hard to get into. Some scenes seemed random, the story was predictable and the supernatural aspects could have been better explored. The characters' behaviour was a bit odd at times, they almost seem OOC if that makes sense. The romance was not very well developed. An average read that will nonetheless appeal to fans of paranormal young adult novels. ( )
  slayra | Sep 21, 2013 |
Näyttää 1-5 (yhteensä 29) (seuraava | näytä kaikki)
ei arvosteluja | lisää arvostelu
Sinun täytyy kirjautua sisään voidaksesi muokata Yhteistä tietoa
Katso lisäohjeita Common Knowledge -sivuilta (englanniksi).
Teoksen kanoninen nimi
Alkuteoksen nimi
Teoksen muut nimet
Alkuperäinen julkaisuvuosi
Henkilöt/hahmot
Tärkeät paikat
Tärkeät tapahtumat
Kirjaan liittyvät elokuvat
Epigrafi (motto tai mietelause kirjan alussa)
Omistuskirjoitus
Ensimmäiset sanat
Sitaatit
Viimeiset sanat
Erotteluhuomautus
Julkaisutoimittajat
Kirjan kehujat
Alkuteoksen kieli
Kanoninen DDC/MDS
Kanoninen LCC

Viittaukset tähän teokseen muissa lähteissä.

Englanninkielinen Wikipedia

-

Enlisted to help in dangerous cases of demonic possession, a teenaged exorcist discovers a race of part-demons intent on raising their forefathers to the earth in human form.

Kirjastojen kuvailuja ei löytynyt.

Kirjan kuvailu
Yhteenveto haiku-muodossa

Current Discussions

-

Suosituimmat kansikuvat

Pikalinkit

Arvio (tähdet)

Keskiarvo: (3.7)
0.5
1 1
1.5 1
2 5
2.5
3 15
3.5 1
4 19
4.5 2
5 13

Oletko sinä tämä henkilö?

Tule LibraryThing-kirjailijaksi.

 

Lisätietoja | Ota yhteyttä | LibraryThing.com | Yksityisyyden suoja / Käyttöehdot | Apua/FAQ | Blogi | Kauppa | APIs | TinyCat | Perintökirjastot | Varhaiset kirja-arvostelijat | Yleistieto | 203,214,297 kirjaa! | Yläpalkki: Aina näkyvissä