Reviews tagging 'Blood'

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

23 reviews

drewfead's review

challenging dark informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Colonisation, Torture, Rape, Sexual violence, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Vomit, Xenophobia, Murder, Blood, Confinement, and Suicidal thoughts

veronicats's review

dark tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Violence, Gore, Racism, Death, Medical content, Medical trauma, Pregnancy, War, Sexual content, Slavery, Misogyny, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, Alcoholism, Colonisation, Sexual violence, Vomit, Blood, Body horror, Confinement, Cursing, Murder, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Rape, Excrement, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Grief, Gun violence, Racial slurs, and Torture

lallalettrice's review against another edition

challenging emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• 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: Torture, Rape, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Gore, Gun violence, and Colonisation

aidrielle's review

adventurous challenging dark informative mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

[lots of thoughts i won't be able to expound] all i can say right now is i wish all asian american literature were like this (critical of the imperialist US that forcibly displaced many of them from their countries of origin in the first place) 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Colonisation, Fatphobia, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Sexual content, Stalking, Violence, War, and Xenophobia

bagxofxtricks's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, War, Rape, Blood, Death, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Classism, Colonisation, Confinement, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Physical abuse, and Torture

merle98's review

adventurous challenging dark informative tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Great book but I am detracting 0.5 stars for the fact that every single female character in the book is either a food-providing wife/mother, a love interest or sexual partner or being brutally raped/tortured/killed off to advance the male protagonist's plotline (or a mix thereof).  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Gore, Murder, Vomit, Xenophobia, War, Violence, Torture, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Sexism, Racism, Racial slurs, Police brutality, Physical abuse, Pedophilia, Misogyny, Mental illness, Medical content, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Drug use, Death of parent, Death, Colonisation, Blood, Alcohol, Adult/minor relationship, and Abandonment

space_corgi's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.75

Finishing this book took me months. And I do mean months. Do I still rate it at 4.75 stars? Yes, yes I do. 

As told in other reviews, the writing is VERBOSE. At some points, it is gratuitously verbose. But that is the voice of our narrator. An intellectual who is trying to dissect himself, but doesn’t quite get there until he is confronted with his own sins. If that sounds cool to you, you would like this book. Otherwise, this is not a spy novel. I mean, it is, but it’s more a reflection on power, control and war.

Also, I would say calling this a thriller is a stretch. You’ll be thrilled by certain passages that you want to underline, frame and paste on the folds of your brain lobes. But the pacing is slow. Arduously slow. And that doesn’t fall in line with a “thriller”. 

Now let’s hop into what wasn’t so great. The narrator’s view on women is complex and disgusting at points in the novel. The sexualization of war and disturbingly detached descriptions of women’s bodies is frankly tough to read through. It’s as if every male author who wants to be seen as intellectual subscribes to using sex/analogies to sex/sexual violence as a way to show the primitive nature of any action. Reverting to cavemen? What better way to illustrate than to bastardize all men through what (presumably) they all desire? Come on people. Let’s do better for all the women that have to read through this crap. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Gun violence, Violence, Rape, Sexual content, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual violence, Racism, and Torture

Moderate: Vomit and Murder

Minor: Blood, Confinement, Classism, and Infidelity

kshertz's review

adventurous challenging dark tense slow-paced

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

3.5

The writing is beautiful which is to say, way above my reading/intelligence level. But at the end it does say it’s not for the dominant white groups so that makes sense. It’s not for me. It’s not linear, there’s no way a book about the Vietnam war is going to have a happy ending. But I learned a lot, which is the whole reason to read it and it challenged me. So, I recommend it if you want to be challenged and learn a lot. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Blood, Body horror, Child death, War, Xenophobia, Violence, Torture, Racial slurs, Physical abuse, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Gore, Grief, Forced institutionalization, Excrement, Emotional abuse, Death of parent, Cultural appropriation, Confinement, and Colonisation

ainereads's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Grief, Gun violence, Murder, Rape, Sexual violence, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Alcoholism, Blood, Child death, and Racism

fluoresensitive's review

challenging dark emotional tense slow-paced

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

3.0

Tw; rape, so ... So many unsettling things
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Beautifully written, but shockingly anti-Black at times. Not to mention the two rapes that take place, oof.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Alcoholism, Blood, Violence, Xenophobia, Torture, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Sexual violence, Racism, Racial slurs, Rape, Police brutality, Physical abuse, Pedophilia, Murder, Mental illness, Forced institutionalization, and Death