Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Mandibula by Mónica Ojeda

42 reviews

dark medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

DNF at pg 133 / 53%
I really dislike this ADULT book spending so much time focusing on a 6 year old's diddling habits and a teen girl's vulva. I'm super averse to dental stuff so the line on pg 133 "I like your teeth so much I want to rip them out of you" absolutely sent me over the edge. 

This is horrific in the worst way. 
Gonna go bleach my eyeballs now. 

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Loveable characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

yeah, fernanda and anne are the final boss of the weird toxic homoerotic  friendship queer girls teen experience.

i quite enjoyed my read, mostly the end since i was really looking for the psychological-horror theme and the tw made me curious LOL
perhaps the first time i come accrocs a book where any kind of bodily fluids are heavily described.
the writing, the way things escalate are fairly interesting to witness! i was really looking forward to the cult setting and the “game” around it and i’m not disappointed…👀

perhaps it should have been better to put footnotes to explain the intentions behind the translation instead of putting everything at the end of the book. the translator's words were very insightful, it's a shame to only find out about it at the end when we could have had more details at the time of the events.

nevertheless, i think i enjoy weird writings where [queer] characters are each other’s obsession to the point of— well… no. no points. i like it tough. bloody. gloomy. i like when they’d rather hurt/kill themselves rather than disappointing the one they adore. i like when they’re flawed, so pathetic that only the person they yearn for is capable to understand them.  
give me blood, bites, pain, scars in the name of adoration and i’ll be yours.



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challenging dark tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
challenging dark reflective sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

"My therapist says when you talk out loud without stopping for a long time, and you really listen to yourself, the mysteries end up coming out of the tangle of your subconscious."

If Ojeda doesn’t become a big name in literary horror, alongside the likes of Jackson, Shelley and Poe, then no one should. 

Given how literary this book is, it took me a while to get through it, but that doesn’t mean this book isn’t horrifyingly beautiful and macabre.

Each character read so differently from one another, I loved diving into each character’s subconscious, seeing where their biases came in.

I’ve always found tales about cosmic horror and the occult fascinating, especially when consumed together; the aspect of putting an ethereal being into our reality in a way that doesn’t feel forced can be so difficult to do, but in my opinion Odeja handles this perfectly! 

Above all else, this tale is about friendship, puberty, motherhood, and the perception of an ideal self.

If you want a slower read that still leaves you a deep sense of horror, a feeling of seeing things in the light and hearing the fluttering of lashes in the dark, then you should put this to the top of your list!

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dark mysterious 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

well, I hated that ending. I felt it inching closer and closer to that and still. Really hated it. I wish the story focused more on the weird ass girls and their friendship rather than the teacher. Mostly because they’re CURRENTLY being little freaks and the teacher is a recovering (soon to be relapsed) freak.

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challenging dark tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Loveable characters: Complicated

I struggled a lot with the writing style at points. just like Our Share of Night, it would regularly go on multi-page stretches with no paragraph breaks, leading me to wonder if perhaps this is a perfectly normal literary convention in south america or at least for writers of literary horror there .... but this was really good once I got into it. I especially loved the chapter which was annelise's essay about fear/white horror/cosmic horror..that was really interesting. and I was really intrigued by what was going on with the girls at their meetings in the building and I also really liked the epistolary format. the ending felt so gaping wide open which I wasn't as much of a fan of but ah well. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark reflective tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This novel is a revelation, a scream trapped in the throat of a teenage girl, a rosary made of strangers' teeth. One that I would pray upon, with reverence. This is a lesson I would sit through again. This is a volcano errupting and there's nowhere you can go to escape. I was so unsettled. I was held so tenderly by this story.

Welcome to The White Age. Explore the horrors of teenage girlhood. The horrors of womanhood. This novel twists the relief of being recognized as the fucked up girl that you are with the religions of desire and violence. 

What would you do for someone you love as the other half of yourself,  the completion of you? Everything? Everything, and all the brutality that implies. 

What is a scary story, a monster, a fear, but something kept alive by the same unwitting people that fall victim to its effect. Come see what you could keep alive. 

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