Reviews tagging 'Vomit'

Blindheten by José Saramago

65 reviews

petitemass15's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Excrement, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Murder, and Rape

Moderate: Violence and Infidelity

Minor: Sexual content and Vomit

rex_b20's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

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

4.25

i read the last 100 pages along with the audio book… and lord have mercy. this is the hardest book i’ve read due to the writing. it’s just one HUGE BLOCK of text. very little stops and little to no quotation marks. but the story is so good!!!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Rape, and Death

chiara_dose's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Vomit, Confinement, Death, Excrement, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Murder

csteidl93's review against another edition

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Violence, Body horror, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Forced institutionalization, Rape, Physical abuse, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Vomit, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, and Sexual content

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury

btrz7's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Excrement, Infidelity, Police brutality, Ableism, Blood, Confinement, Death, Murder, Rape, Violence, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Gun violence, Medical content, Misogyny, Sexual violence, Vomit, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Sexism, and Sexual assault

Minor: Homophobia

carolab's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual content, Gun violence, Blood, Body horror, Vomit, Death, Excrement, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, and Sexual violence

nikkithegeek's review against another edition

dark

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

1.0

Everyone else seems to love this book, clearly, there must be something wrong with me. Because I hated it. Passionately. The way women are treated and described is appalling. It's also really violent, including graphic rape scenes. Do I need this in my life? Do I want to read books that are depicting the most depressing and inhumane faces of humanity in crisis? No. Now even less. I like my books uplifting and hopeful. This was not it. I just finished it because friends of mine recommended it and clearly, we have a lot to talk about. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Violence, Sexual violence, Excrement, Death, Blood, and Vomit

shelvedbysara's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Review: This book is emotional torture, but it is brilliant. It provides such a visceral depiction of human suffering and of the fight for survival. The eminent presence of death makes the reading experience quite tense and even agonising - sometimes it’s hard to put some distance between your world and and the one you're absorbed in for you can feel the characters’ pain as if you were experiencing it yourself. The white blindness is also a great metaphor and Saramago uncovers its’ subtle meaning quite brilliantly by questioning whether the blindness of the eyes is also one of the mind.

Summary: When a man goes mysteriously blind as he is driving home, an epidemic of white blindness spreads around the country. The first cases are transferred to a closed complex to complete a period of quarantine and they form a group whose journey we follow throughout the entire narrative. They are nameless people living in a nameless city during a nameless era in time. Only their experiences are ever labelled - blindness, abuse, suffering, despair, hope - which grants them a universal meaning. Ensaios Sobre a Cegueira (Blindness) is a literary analysis of what it means to be blinded not just by eyes that cannot see, but also by fear.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Forced institutionalization, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Infidelity and Vomit

queer_bookwyrm's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

 3 ⭐ CW: sex work, violence, unwanted touching, rape, descriptions of blood, open wounds, and feces, animals eating corpses, quarantine

Blindness by José Saramago is a fiction novel translated from Portuguese to English. I won't lie, this was a rough read for me. The author doesn't use any dialogue tags nor does he even have any of differentiating dialogue from prose other than a comma (of which there are a lot, so good luck) and a capitalized letter. This was a slower read for me, because I often had to reread passages the be sure I understood the dialogue. The story itself was interesting, and I might have enjoyed it more as a movie.

Out of nowhere people are being struck blind, seeing only white instead of darkness. No one knows why or how this occuring, but it seems contagious, so they start some pretty extreme quarantine measures. The first people to go blind are rounded up and placed in an abandoned mental institution without help, doctors, or guidance. They are even barred from leaving by the military, who uses force when they feel threatened.

We follow a core group of people whose names we never learn. We witness the atrocities they witness and experienced when their time in quartile turned to chaos and robbed them of their dignity. Only one person hasn't gone blind, a woman referred to only as the doctor's wife. She alone carries the burden of sight for so many people.

This book was ultimately a story of loss. Loss of sight, loss of dignity, loss of life, loss of civilization, and the futility of it all. I'm glad I read this, but I'm good on reading another book formatted in this way. It might have been alright as an audiobook, if you do those. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Blood, Excrement, and Vomit

Moderate: Sexual content and Sexual harassment

salamanda's review against another edition

challenging mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Vomit, Physical abuse, and Gun violence