Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

Bliss Montage by Ling Ma

25 reviews

jfin54's review against another edition

mysterious reflective slow-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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Racism, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, Pregnancy, Xenophobia, Toxic relationship, Physical abuse, and Drug use

plxtoprojector's review

challenging dark emotional reflective 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Body horror, Medical content, Physical abuse, Racism, Drug use, and Stalking

Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Toxic relationship, and Pregnancy

eyreickson's review against another edition

there are some questionable choices and jokes in the yeti chapter that made me put it down. Everything before then was compelling and well written, but I got thrown off by what I consider fleeting but repeated antisemitic jokes that I didn't think the book could recover from.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse and Drug use

Minor: Antisemitism

kaylasbewks's review against another edition

challenging emotional mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

stars ,, 4.0
cawpile ,, 8.14

i actually loved this, even if it took me a minute to wrap my head around some of the overarching metaphors, the writing was gorgeous 'nd i'll definitely be checking out 'severance' by the same author. :) none of the stories really fell flat to me either, i definitely had my favourites, those being 'the office', 'peking duck' & 'tomorrow' but all of them were great. not being too detailed in this rvw because there's just ,, so much going on.

boobclub pick with mari !!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia, Toxic relationship, Drug use, Medical trauma, Pregnancy, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Death, Physical abuse, and Blood

ac_rva's review

emotional medium-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Rape, Domestic abuse, and Physical abuse

jessi_c's review

emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

To be clear, I haven’t finished the book. I just finished the ‘Returning’ chapter and knew I needed to rate this 5 stars immediately. IMMEDIATELY. No matter how the rest of the book unfolds, it’s 5 stars to me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use

Moderate: Toxic friendship and Physical abuse

Minor: Toxic relationship, Body shaming, and Rape

siriface's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Drug use, Drug abuse, Pregnancy, and Physical abuse

ninahuynh's review

adventurous challenging slow-paced

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

2.0

This was quite the read. There were times I thought maybe the stories connected, but then the story would go into confusing narration. It may be because I was not in the mindset for this type of narrative, but boy was it difficult to get into. The only story that really intrigued me and I actually remember is the yeti story. I usually like odd stories but these were not for me; I was just confused on what I was reading for most of the time. It might have been bliss for me to still have this on my tbr.

Interesting concepts; execution did not work for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Domestic abuse, Death of parent, and Drug use

Moderate: Addiction, Physical abuse, and Racism

Minor: Sexual content

marissab's review

adventurous dark funny mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Weird, but in a really good way!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Medical content, Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, Pregnancy, and Toxic friendship

skyba3's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

Such a great book! Wonderfully written and imaginative. I l sometimes didn’t even know I’d entered the fantasy until it was blatantly obvious. It was disturbing, sad, beautiful, and sometimes even creepy (I’m talking to you, office hours)? It was witty, imaginative, and sometimes very jarring. I just really loved this one. I will note that most stories end very ambiguously (which I loved), so I’m not sure many would enjoy not receiving a clear answer, but I loved how the end of each story allowed me to take a beat and think about the meaning of the story, the imagery and symbols, what the fantasy was and what it represented. It was a very beautiful book, and I think anyone can easily pick up this book. It’s amazing what Ling Ma does to build a story so quickly and so engaging. I often struggle getting into new novels but each short story was enticing from the start. 

Also - I wanted to note that this book would be very easy to listen to as an audiobook (try libby).

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Drug abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Racism, Toxic relationship, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Physical abuse, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Cancer and Car accident