Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

The Half Life of Valery K by Natasha Pulley

14 reviews

tamara_joy's review

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Medical content, Death, Deportation, Grief, Confinement, Panic attacks/disorders, and Police brutality

Moderate: Gun violence, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Fire/Fire injury, and Forced institutionalization

Minor: Animal cruelty, Alcohol, Pregnancy, Car accident, Blood, Rape, Child death, and Cancer

cleot's review

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Death, Gaslighting, Confinement, Animal cruelty, and Police brutality

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, War, Antisemitism, Homophobia, Terminal illness, Violence, and Animal death

Minor: Sexual violence, Ableism, Genocide, and Misogyny

gulag, soviet repression, femicide, human experimentation, nazism, Josef mengele, radiation, surveillance state, child experimentation, willful exposure of civilian population to lethal circumstances

sashahc's review

adventurous emotional mysterious sad 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? Yes

5.0

I just finished “The Half Life of Valery K” by Natasha Pulley.  In all her books, Natasha Pulley writes terrible things happening and acknowledges they are terrible, but the characters are so engaging and there is a sweetness that keeps you reading.  This one is no exception, and it has a whole HOST of trigger warnings.  I’m sure you can look them up, but the biggest one for me was nuclear accidents and radiation sickness. (It may seem odd for this to be my biggest one considering what all happens in the book, but there is personal history there.) This #book is a bit of a thriller, and a bit of a character study, and it’s queer.  And there’s an octopus named Albert who steals the TV remote.  So.

This one will stay with me for a while.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Gaslighting, Forced institutionalization, and Police brutality

Moderate: Homophobia

bestknownfor's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Medical content, and Forced institutionalization

Moderate: Cancer, Misogyny, Child death, Terminal illness, and Homophobia

Minor: Antisemitism, Rape, and Body horror

krys_kilz's review

mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Confinement

Moderate: Murder, Forced institutionalization, Terminal illness, and Homophobia

Minor: Antisemitism, War, and Rape

pvbobrien's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Violence, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Forced institutionalization, Homophobia, Infidelity, Medical content, Police brutality, Terminal illness, and Antisemitism

Minor: Sexual violence, Torture, Xenophobia, Gun violence, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Pregnancy, and Rape

breadwitchery's review

adventurous mysterious medium-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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Violence, Animal death, and Death

Moderate: Medical trauma, Confinement, Murder, Gun violence, Homophobia, Forced institutionalization, Sexism, Terminal illness, Torture, and Police brutality

Minor: Cursing, Racism, Ableism, War, Racial slurs, Antisemitism, Alcohol, Panic attacks/disorders, and Vomit

ninjamuse's review

emotional funny tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Police brutality, Violence, Forced institutionalization, and Confinement

Moderate: Medical content, Violence, Gaslighting, and Alcohol

Minor: Homophobia, Rape, and Sexism

bel017's review

adventurous challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

Too horrifying for me (though I finished it), should have checked the content warnings first.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Violence, and Animal cruelty

Moderate: Death, Torture, Grief, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, War, Police brutality, Murder, Medical trauma, Terminal illness, Physical abuse, Homophobia, and Genocide

spacebornfew's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

On one hand, this book gave me exactly what I wanted, it follows a formula that just makes something in my heart clench. It was, as always with Natahsa Pulley novels, hauntingly beautiful, tragic and tender. With bonus octopus.  

However it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore how poorly her female characters are treated. You can't help but feel that they are plot devices purely there to move things along for the leading men. Considering the book explores sexism and gender, at some points in quite a heavy handed manner, it feels incredibly jarring to still not have women exist to have some purpose beyond window dressing. 

It's also very dark, at points a lot darker than her other novels which I had not entirely expected. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Cancer, Child death, and Death

Moderate: Animal death, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Torture, Animal cruelty, Genocide, Homophobia, Police brutality, Rape, Terminal illness, Miscarriage, and Physical abuse

Minor: Antisemitism, Panic attacks/disorders, War, and Xenophobia