Reviews tagging 'Gore'

Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits by David Wong

11 reviews

toodrew's review against another edition

dark fast-paced

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

1.0

This book had an interesting premise. However, there is excessive violence against women as well as pretty much everything else horrible that can be done to women/girls. It has pretty much every misogynistic trope as well. For example, the only two women can't get along due to sexual jealousy. Ancient Greece called and wants her tropes back. There are no women side characters unless said side character are

sexual or in sex-related field, 

  in which case their are no men. 

It does not work as a comedy because of this. You can't make

sex traffickers

likable.  It would have been better if they either choose a different flaw or didn't bother trying to make them quirky. I couldn't feel sympathy for most of the main cast because of this.  Like I get it's supposed to be bad people, but don't try to make them sympathetic. Seriously, there was a chapter detailing

how they would trick women (and perhaps even girls) from war-torn countries into sex slavery, specifically detailing how most were murdered before the age of thirty.

  This can be done well if given proper weight but the execution is abysmal.  The authors tried to make the cast who did this flawed-but-likable, even heroic in some cases. I'm sorry but no. That's not how to handle this material. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Car accident, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Violence, Trafficking, Drug abuse, Sexism, Body shaming, Murder, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Torture, Fatphobia, Gaslighting, and War

prairieraven's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.5

Someone wrote "Dick Lit even though the main character is a woman."  Yeah, that sounds about right. Ignoring plot holes and certain scenes being written simply for a punch line, it is nothing less than entertaining.  Definitely women characters written from a man's point of view and wildly passes the Beschdel test even though only 3 women talk in the whole novel. This book reads like Ernest Clines work but with much less arrogance and a lot more humour.  I'd put this down as a humorous dystopia sci-fi novel with an eerily accurate commentary on social media, smart technology, gaping wealth/poverty gaps and a city full of high technology and militia's in place of law and government sprinkled with dick and fart jokes and peppered with boobs.

Sometimes the line was blurred between satire and alarming perspective accuracy. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Excrement, Fatphobia, Confinement, Cultural appropriation, Hate crime, Child abuse, Classism, Infidelity, Torture, Abandonment, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Cancer, Death, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Murder, Physical abuse, Racism, Alcoholism, Blood, Body horror, Cursing, Violence, War, Slavery, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Stalking, Suicide, Vomit, Animal cruelty, Death of parent, Deportation, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Cannibalism, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Medical content, Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Rape, Alcohol, Bullying, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Body shaming, Car accident, Pedophilia, Police brutality, Suicide attempt, Misogyny, Sexual harassment, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, and Trafficking

cserrano22's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

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

1.5

Was not a funny book. Alot of triggers and giving edgy middle school vibes. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Homophobia, Sexual assault, Classism, Fatphobia, Hate crime, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Body shaming, Child abuse, Rape, Sexism, Pedophilia, Gore, Cultural appropriation, Sexual content, Stalking, Trafficking, Torture, Death of parent, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Violence, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Racism, Blood, Drug use, Murder, and Emotional abuse

mtaylor346's review against another edition

It was very bad and made me uncomfortable to read

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Stalking, Domestic abuse, Racism, Gore, Sexual violence, Violence, Homophobia, Misogyny, Trafficking, and Hate crime

cyndaqueen's review against another edition

funny lighthearted fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Violence, and Gore

Moderate: Death of parent and Child abuse

pinot_and_pageturners_318's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny tense fast-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore and Violence

Moderate: Misogyny

manchicken's review against another edition

dark funny tense fast-paced

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

3.5

This book is all sorts of messed up. It is entertaining, but it’s problematic to a large degree. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Trafficking, Torture, Gore, Death of parent, Rape, Gun violence, Mass/school shootings, Fatphobia, Child abuse, Body shaming, Alcoholism, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, Murder, Sexual content, Stalking, Sexism, Racism, and Injury/Injury detail

tiernanhunter's review against another edition

dark funny lighthearted fast-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? It's complicated

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Addiction, Alcohol, Bullying, Cursing, Drug use, Medical trauma, Racism, Torture, Alcoholism, Animal death, Body shaming, Excrement, Fatphobia, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Animal cruelty, Death, Drug abuse, Grief, Sexism, Toxic friendship, Vomit, War, Blood, Body horror, Car accident, Classism, Confinement, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Kidnapping, Mass/school shootings, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexual violence, Trafficking, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Murder, and Physical abuse

unboxedjack's review against another edition

funny tense medium-paced

3.25

Here’s the thing: this book was amusing, had some fairly spot on satirical critique of class, and did a fairly decent job keeping my attention aside from the copy being rife with grammatical and spelling errors (this publisher obviously needs to hire me as a copy editor). That being said, it was very clearly written by a cisgender white guy trying really hard to make a cisgender female character unique. Zoey was badass at times, but she definitely smacked of a manic pixie dream girl stereotype, albeit one with the humor of a 12-year-old. It’s not a great example of literature and tended to drag at times, but when I was able to suspend my critiques for a time, it was a fun read and I’m curious to see how the next in the series is.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Gore, Violence, Misogyny, Death, Sexual harassment, Torture, and Gun violence

Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Car accident, Classism, Cursing, Gun violence, and Murder

bluejayreads's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny fast-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? It's complicated

5.0

I have read several spectacular masterpieces of fiction this year. But it's been a long, long time since I had so much pure fun with a book. 

I read the first chapter of this book somewhere online, and despite the lackluster title, it ended up on my reading list when someone had to clarify that a serial killer was not in fact a pancake and I actually laughed. The rest of the book continues in the same vein. There's blood and violence and torture and gore but told with such wit and humor that I could swing back and forth between serious bodily injury and unrestrained laughter and it didn't even feel jarring. 

The protagonist is Zoey - fat, dumpy, working as a barista, living with her stripper mother in a Colorado trailer park. She knows her absent father is a billionaire and hates him. Then she is targeted by a serial killer, at which point she finds out that 1, her father is dead; 2, she is the key to getting into his super-secure vault; and 3, every warring faction in the high-tech futuristic city of Tabula Ra$a has a bounty on her head. So Zoey is off to Tabula Ra$a, where the "suits" - the crack team her father assembled to do his dirty work - don't seem particularly trustworthy, but they seem to want her less dead than everyone else. 

That sounds like I'm writing a back cover, doesn't it? I can't help it, this book lends itself so well to being described like something you want to read. Want a cyberpunk hellhole? Welcome to Tabula Ra$a, where the skyline is always advertising, cybernetic enhancements are a thing you can get, construction and demolition is constant, everyone is constantly streaming their every move, and the highest priority is more viewers. Want a poor person suddenly rich? Meet Zoey, formerly living in poverty and now sole inheritor of her father's many billions. Want to watch a well-oiled machine of morally gray experts work? The suits have you covered. Want some futuristic violence? With Moloch as the primary bad guy, you have all that in spades. 

If you're at all familiar with incel ideology, you'll immediately recognize Moloch as the incel ideal. Toxic masculinity in human form, he believes that feelings are watering down the masculinity of true men and what men really need to do is kill off the weak men and put women back in their lesser, disposable place, and to do that all they need are physical strength, addiction to "the juice" (adrenaline, I think), and willingness to commit violence for any reason or no reason at all. He was frustrating without being too frustrating, and a wonderfully hateable villain. 

In the first third or so of the book, I kept thinking about all the ways I would have done things differently than Zoey. I told myself that I would have settled into the world of the rich and powerful just fine. But then I realized that's kinda the point. I grew up rich (my parents are literal millionaires) and I leaned how to make things happen from my mother, a thin rich white cishet woman who expects the world to bend to her whims and if it doesn't will make it so. I may be broke and in debt now, but because of my privileged background, I would find it a lot easier to fit into that world than Zoey, who grew up with a single mom in a trailer park. 

This book does have some interesting things to say about wealth and social class, even though it's muddied a bit by the "good guys" be billionaires whose money came from human trafficking among other unsavory activities. Zoey herself is struggling to go from "trailer trash" (her words) to head of a multi-billion-dollar empire. Squatterville, an abandoned building where hundreds of homeless people live, is an important part of several plot events (although that message is undercut by the fact that the homeless people there are viewed more as pawns than human beings). I think it was trying to say good things, but they didn't come across very clearly. 

This book is not perfect, not by any stretch of the imagination. Zoey's characterization flipped from terrified and cowering to brave and witty and back with no rhyme or reason, the one major character death felt cheap (and it took me a long time to realize it wasn't part of a secret plan, they were actually dead and I was supposed to be sad), and if I think about it there are dropped plot threads everywhere. But if you think too hard about it you're missing the point. This is not supposed to be a book you analyze and think critically about and whatnot. It's supposed to be entertaining and fun, a bit fluff reading for those who prefer their fluff on the bloody cyberpunk side. And at that, it 100% succeeds. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Gore, Death, Violence, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Misogyny

Moderate: Body horror and Pedophilia

Minor: Death of parent, Animal death, Racism, Trafficking, Sexual content, and Sexual harassment

Toxic masculinity, incel-type ideology