Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Blood Meridian, or The Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy

87 reviews

shakita45's review against another edition

challenging dark slow-paced

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

2.5

when I was trying to explain this book to my sister, I said that there's books and there's literature.  This is literature.

I read this book on the recommendation of a YouTuber (wendigoon) and it's so far outside my usual wheelhouse that I honestly felt kind of stupid in a way I haven't felt when trying to read a book since high school. I just didn't Get It, you know?  I feel like I understand the themes and the overall message, but the more granular details and the subtleties just went right over my head.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Animal cruelty, Violence, Racial slurs, Animal death, and Gore

Holy shit just do not read this book if you don't have a strong stomach, it's graphic as hell

reachingforstardust's review

challenging dark reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Murder, War, Violence, Gore, Genocide, Racial slurs, and Excrement

Moderate: Racism, Torture, Pedophilia, Alcohol, Confinement, Child abuse, and Misogyny

lindsgiovannone's review

adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Colonisation, Murder, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Animal death, Abandonment, Death, Gore, Sexual violence, and Animal cruelty

eabosch's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark reflective 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual assault, Violence, Animal cruelty, Child death, Racial slurs, Sexual violence, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual harassment, Animal death, Child abuse, Genocide, Murder, Sexual content, War, Xenophobia, Torture, Alcohol, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Pedophilia, Racism, Excrement, Hate crime, Mental illness, Rape, and Alcoholism

hatsworth's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

 Moral law is an invention of mankind. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view. For the argument is indeed trivial, but not so the separate wills thereby made manifest. Decisions of life and death, of what shall be and what shall not, beggar all question of right . In elections of these magnitudes are all lesser ones subsumed, moral, spiritual, natural.
~ Judge Holden, Blood Meridian 

McCarthy's Blood Meridian (1985) is a book of wills. Players in the ultimate game force their wills on everyone around them, and the victor only emerges after all competition is eradicated. Here we observe through the eyes of The Kid the strongest wills in America's deep southwest unfolding a sequence of events, cause and effect until only the strongest will is left to strut and dance upon its stage. It does not take long for the pure carnage to stop shocking you, but the coldness with which it is recounted never will. McCarthy thoroughly and completely avoids internality and goes to great lengths to ensure his reader never once catches an idea of how his cast is feeling. Sometimes, two dozen pages pass before The Kid says anything or contributes to the story. We see times where men stand awkwardly around the corpse of a raped and naked twelve-year-old boy, or stand around corpses that have had their genitals relocated to the owner's red and foaming mouth, or drowning puppies are shot at like sideshow games, or one thousand scalps are taken in an afternoon's work, or close companions are hanged, or traveling convoys are ambushed, or hundreds of livestock are cast from the top or a stony cliff to spray red mist across the lower landscape and not once will you be told the effect these events have had on the characters. This is a book of wills: the extremes of which a will is capable if it desires strongly enough to come out on top of the ultimate game of war. The Kid and Judge Holden are diametrically opposed. The Judge is an indomitable force of will, resolute in his belief that everything has a purpose and absolutely must fulfill that purpose. Only then can you force your will onto others: 

For whoever makes a shelter of reeds and hides has joined his spirit to the common destiny of creatures, and he will subside back into the primal mud with scarcely a cry. But who builds in stone seeks to alter the structure of the universe... 

The Kid is a natural-born killer, a dead-eye in every sense of the word. Whenever the situation absolutely calls for violence, he demonstrates his profound ability for death. However, at all other times, he is resolved to take a neutral stance and subscribes to a 'live and let live' approach. In doing so, his very existence is offensive to Holden, who sees the boy as a warrior. Neither character gets any development here. McCarthy puts these two people in motion. You will have to read the novel to discover what happens when The Kid's immovable neutrality collides with Holden's unstoppable force of will.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Racism, and Racial slurs

Moderate: Pedophilia and Rape

ajlct's review against another edition

challenging dark 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Racial slurs, Racism, Blood, Colonisation, Cursing, War, Animal death, Death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Animal cruelty, Child death, and Violence

Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

masterofmusix's review against another edition

It's incredibly gory, racist torture porn and I couldn't stand to finish it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Violence, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Torture, Trafficking, Racism, Gore, Physical abuse, Body horror, Death, Genocide, Animal death, Blood, Colonisation, Slavery, and War

grantsharpies's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Genocide, Gore, Murder, Child death, Colonisation, Child abuse, Slavery, Violence, War, Rape, Animal cruelty, and Blood

weirdodari's review against another edition

challenging dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

This is the greatest Western epic of all time. It reads beautifully, like a poem about the American frontier while still stained with gore and blood. One moment, I’ll be reading about the beauty of the mountains and the landscape the characters are traveling through, and the next moment someone gets their head blown off with a graphic description to follow. This book is a depiction of hell on earth and it’s incredible. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Colonisation, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Alcoholism, Animal death, Child death, Murder, Racial slurs, War, Death, and Gore

cthulhu95's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Violence, War, and Blood

Moderate: Alcohol

Minor: Pedophilia, Sexual violence, and Kidnapping