Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

4 reviews

anarmandameg's review

adventurous challenging dark tense slow-paced

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

3.75

Just gonna recycle my review from The Hanging City and say 'Weirdly Horny'

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Drug use, Murder, Racial slurs, Fire/Fire injury, Addiction, Toxic friendship, Blood, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Sexism, Trafficking, Gore, Genocide, Gaslighting, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, Rape, Xenophobia, Alcohol, Infidelity, Racism, Religious bigotry, Torture, Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child death, Colonisation, Death of parent, Deportation, Drug abuse, Confinement, Mental illness, Misogyny, Death, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Violence, and War

Moderate: Blood, Classism, Body shaming, Child abuse, Fatphobia, and Domestic abuse

hopscotchreads's review against another edition

emotional reflective slow-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

4.0

As a wasian/hapa myself, this hit close to home. I still think about my favorite quotes. Lots of important conversations here. But some of the writing is pointlessly verbose and there's a men-writing-women feel that is super annoying sometimes.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Classism, Cultural appropriation, Cursing, Murder, Death, Torture, Violence, Racism, War, and Rape

Moderate: Colonisation, Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, and Abandonment

Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Animal cruelty

hanna_'s review

challenging dark emotional sad 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

2.0

 This book was full of dense and confusing prose, it felt like the author was choosing words just to show off his vocabulary and not because they were good descriptions. I found the plot hard to follow, and the dramatic tone shift at the end off putting. I have never shouted “eww!” out loud so many times while reading a book. It was full of unnecessarily graphic depictions of sexual topics, pedophilic fantasies, rape, bestiality/necrophilia (wish I could unread chapter 6), bowel movements, etc that did not add anything to the plot. The only things I liked was learning a bit about the Vietnam war.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Excrement, War, Violence, Torture, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Rape, Pedophilia, and Murder

emgulph's review

challenging dark tense slow-paced

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

4.5

Don't get me wrong, I loved this book. It was a stunning visual into the intricacies of the Vietnam war, with a refreshing focus on the crimes of all the powers involved, not taking sides. The refuges and victims of the Vietnam War are allowed to be both angry with their so-called American saviors and with their home country in disrepair.

That being said, much of the content in this work is shocking and not for the faint of heart. It's a book about war. Fresh out of finishing this, I'm sure there are content warnings I forgot to list below. There were many moments where I needed to pause and catch my breath.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Torture, Violence, Police brutality, Murder, Gun violence, Forced institutionalization, and Animal cruelty

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Mental illness, and Xenophobia

Minor: Homophobia and Sexual content