Reviews with content warning for Murder - 좀비

This is such an incredibly unique book and it brilliantly achieves what it sets out to do. The flow of the writing is very odd and takes a bit to get used to. But it also allows you to reall get the sense of living in the mind of someone as deranged as Q.P. Oates did a remarkable job getting into the mind of someone like this and creating their inner world so vividly for us. This book feels uncomfortable to read and it does an excellent job at making you truly hate Q.P.
The only reason it isn't 5☆ is that the flow and pacing does feel really confusing when you start and that makes it hard to get into the real flow things and understand the plot. I also take issue with the author choosing to make her sadistic and extremel sexually driven (and perverted) serial killer a gay man (when the stereotype has always been that they are predators). Especially given that this novel was written/published on close to the end of the aids epidemic when gay men were being treated even more vilified than normal. Even if Oates did not intentionally mean to create such a dangerous stereotype I cannot believe that she wasn't at least subconsciously biased by homophobia when writing.
Definitely worth checking trigger warnings.

Content Warnings

rachelunabridged's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced

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

3.25

yikes, super dark + disturbing read! i knew what i was getting into so i wasn't surprised, but man, was i disgusted. i had a good time playing detective as i picked up the context clues + pieced together Quentin's situation as the son of a well-to-do family (who literally gets away with murder because of this fact), but that was literally the only enjoyment to be had. the rest of this read was incredibly bleak + horrifying. that's not the reason for the 3-star rating tho. ultimately, i kinda found quentin to be vapid and uninteresting as a pov character. i felt like there were a lot of interesting things the author could have explored with him, but instead he came off as not having a whole lot of depth, imo.

Content Warnings

gringolet's review against another edition

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dark reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.25

A meandering, disturbing book that goes nowhere on purpose. A threatening air of mundanity.

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helen_is's review against another edition

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So incredibly violent & way too confronting for me. I skipped ahead to the last couple of pages & can't see that there is a point to the violence/sexual abuse... it's just horrible

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tailwhip's review against another edition

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dark tense

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

1.0

Content Warnings

bofadeez's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.5

Awesome book. Fucking disgusting. Kept me interested and I enjoyed the book a lot.

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