Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean

52 reviews

mraible18's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.25

An eerie, gorey fairytale about motherhood, and the things that people will do for love. The world of the Bookeaters was really interesting and raised some questions that I think are going to linger with me for awhile.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Sexual violence, and Murder

ashleyrunswild's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Alcoholism, Blood, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Slavery, Rape, Sexism, Trafficking, Misogyny, Body horror, Cannibalism, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Murder, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Vomit

halfbloodprincess_hogwarts's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

2.0

This was not my cup of tea. It's quite triggering and has a society that controls women reproductive rights. Solely, from my understanding, on sexual violence. 

So I jumped from 32% of the audio to the end and was greatly disappointed with the ending. It leaves a dry cough of hope at the end that is 99.9% uncertain/may not succeed. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Domestic abuse, Rape, Abandonment, Infertility, Murder, Sexual assault, Body horror, Cannibalism, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual violence, Alcohol, Confinement, Grief, Pregnancy, and Torture

leahjanespeare's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

3.0

I dunno, I have very mixed feelings about this one. I think the idea of book eaters who have children who are brain eaters (zombies) is fucking awesome and original.

The rest of it...it did not click with me. It's very Handmaid's Tale-esque with this sorta Mafia family/Patriarchy ruling the book eaters, and who control all the book eater women. Women whose entire existence revolves around being breeders for their dying race.

The main character is a queer woman (hinted at being a lesbian for she doesn't have the words to describe herself) who (due to mafia patriarchy) is married to a man. She is regularly raped by him, and has produced two children. While this is not detailed, her internal horror and emotional turmoil from the marital rape is very present in the narrative so tread carefully if that is a trigger for you. The fairy-tale aspect of the narration almost romanticized her situation which put me off, personally.

I think the pacing needed work since nothing much happened, and she was very slow to realize what a horrible world she was a part of. I didn't have a whole lot of patience for that but I will admit she was extremely sheltered in that respect (despite having eaten thousands of books and kinda absorbing their knowledge...??) And I wish some side characters were fleshed out more. There was a guy who was asexual (who taught her the possibility and existence of queer identities) and I think he's her cousin but that sorta fell away and I think he may have been killed off. Also there was someone named Hester who was maybe a love interest for the mc but honestly where she came from, I couldn't say.

THAT BEING SAID. If you want to read a dark exploration about motherhood and love and fucked up no-win situations and trying to escape abuse - you'll probably enjoy it. IF you are looking for a cool book vampire fantasy adventure, you will not find it here. I think part of the problem with my reading experience is the wrong marketing and therefore different expectations going in.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gore, Sexual violence, Violence, Toxic relationship, and Rape

plume_de_renarde's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol and Misogyny

Moderate: Sexual violence

upperjackpain's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad 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? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Drug use, Violence, Sexual violence, and Gun violence

Moderate: Sexism, Alcohol, Blood, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Child abuse, Confinement, Rape, Pregnancy, Misogyny, Murder, Trafficking, Injury/Injury detail, and Body horror

Minor: Torture

kcsadowsky's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense fast-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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gore and Violence

Minor: Sexual violence and Sexual assault

sarah984's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

1.0

If you remember that era in the early 2000s where everyone was making zombie media but it wasn't really cool anymore, so they were all sort of ashamed about it and like, "well MY creatures aren't zombies because they [one random gimmick; it's a fungus or whatever]," even though they totally are zombies - this is that but with vampires.

Even at the end I was totally unclear on how book eating was supposed to work. The characters' homes are full of intact books and they have fangs so I assumed they drained the book's "essence" or something, but later a character is putting ketchup on one, or soaking it in water to make it easier to eat. Book eating is always sort of elided, which is kind of funny because mind eating (a sort of mutation that some book eaters have that requires them to eat brains) is so vividly described on multiple occasions.

The characters all sound the same and half the book is characters describing events that have already happened to each other, so there isn't much suspense until right at the end. There is one problem that hangs over the characters for most of the runtime but then is IMMEDIATELY solved the second it actually comes up, which felt kind of pointless.

The romance is terrible; the characters barely talk and suddenly the kid is calling them girlfriends. This woman is the only one the main character really interacts with, which is sort of weird for a book billing itself as feminist. She looks at most other women with either pity or scorn. There is an extremely weird chapter where characters quote the dictionary definition of asexuality at each other that ends up being almost insulting, and the "I ruined a baby with my son's Autism Beam" bit was ridiculous.

I have no idea what the book was trying to say: parental love can be self destructive? Fairy tales destroy the imagination? The author really likes Tomb Raider and needs to make sure we know it?

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcohol, Blood, Body horror, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Ableism, Confinement, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Infertility, Xenophobia, Medical content, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Rape, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual violence, Slavery, Toxic relationship, Trafficking, Violence, and Vomit

Minor: Car accident and Child death

georgeanna_'s review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Murder, Infertility, Trafficking, Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, Misogyny, Domestic abuse, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Sexual violence, Pregnancy, Gore, Death, and Alcohol

morethanmylupus's review against another edition

dark hopeful reflective sad 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

4.0

Clever and creative! I enjoyed the magical realism and Bookeater culture in this book. The plot itself wasn't particularly unique, but I enjoyed the story from beginning to end regardless. I definitely recommend this one and hope we get another book about the Book Eaters. A few moments were a rather disturbing though, so check the trigger warnings. 

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Books for this ARC!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Child death, Sexual violence, Sexism, and Misogyny

Moderate: Acephobia/Arophobia