Reviews tagging 'Murder'

The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo

36 reviews

ana_vargas's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Homophobia, Transphobia, Violence, Religious bigotry, and Murder

Moderate: Sexual assault

jourdanicus's review

dark hopeful tense slow-paced

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

4.5

Whoa 😳 this book was not what I expected. I thought: queer horror. I was not prepared for:

queer revenge horror and oh, monster sex 😀

. Anyway it was really good and I strongly recommend to any fans of queer/historical horror or queer speculative fiction.

As far as horror goes, this one was not terrifying per se. It had the strong sense of place that I find most books set in Appalachia tend to have, and Appalachia can be a spooky place at times. This was more tense than scary, and definitely check the trigger warnings because transphobia is a central part of the plot (but

don't worry bc the ending is satisfying

)!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Sexual content, Transphobia, and Murder

Moderate: Animal death, Body horror, Death, Homophobia, Misogyny, Blood, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Sexual assault

rhi_'s review

challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Murder, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Deadnaming, Rape, Sexual assault, Pregnancy, and Fire/Fire injury

cowbrotherx's review against another edition

fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.0

i wish it had been longer! i wish we got more of a development of

leslie and stevie's relationship

i think there was room to build up more tension between characters.
also, fully did not anticipate

monsterfucking

, but enjoyed the book none the less

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Gore, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Kidnapping, Grief, Cannibalism, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Outing, Alcohol, Dysphoria, War, and Injury/Injury detail

paige_hollingsworth99's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

• Loveable characters? Yes

4.75

Fantastic. Delightful. Not as scary as expect but! We love queer revenge. This was very heavy for me, but I thought the ending delivered.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Hate crime, Sexual content, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Religious bigotry, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Confinement, Gun violence, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual violence, Medical content, Abortion, Pregnancy, and War

Minor: Cursing and Fire/Fire injury

rachelgreenreads's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-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? No

5.0

The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo

I didn’t know I had a southern gothic trans horror romance hole in my heart until this book filled it. I think I could read this book a hundred times and not get sick of it. 

The prose was lush and poetic, while still feeling grounded and deeply personal. The social horror was impeccable. Mandelo uses parallel themes of one person poisoning a whole community: the villain believes such of our main character, that his queerness will spread sin and evil through the holler. While in reality and alongside this narrative, the pastor, relatively new to town, has poisoned the community with his hatred and suspicion. A community that was once “a decent place as any for a child to be strange.”

Mandelo also captures the intense and unique way in which queer people find and support each other, and the many small and large resistances we’ve embodied throughout history. 

If you support trans rights, and also trans wrongs, I highly recommend this book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Misogyny, Transphobia, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Animal death and Rape

Minor: Fire/Fire injury

bwoo's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Transphobia, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Rape, Murder, and War

fran's review

dark reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Transphobia, Murder, and War

Moderate: Animal death, Misogyny, and Rape

Minor: Child abuse and Abortion

naomidanae's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

3.75

 The writing in this book is immediately engaging. Mandelo knows how to paint a picture. I felt unsettled from the start, too. Spar Creek, as is true of many settings in stories that I love, is a character of its own. The human characters in this story are cast in the strange light of the town itself, and there's a seething queer rage at the heart of this story.

I wasn't expecting sexual explicitness in this novella, and I do think those scenes have a place, but the juxtaposition of that with everything else that happens in the book is a bit off-putting. Being a survivor of sexual assault is not incongruous with still having desire by any means, but these scenes happened so quickly and suddenly that I wondered if they could have been handled a little more carefully or with a bit more nuance instead.

Some quotes:
"The forest whispered around him with a thousand holy mouths. As Woolf had written, Everything, in fact, was something else."
"He'd been a raw-blooded young thing once, and he understood the sweetness—the genuine security—of revenge. He even understood the desire to keep one's hometown, but the thing was, he also understood how dangerous Stevie's path of resistance would be. Sometimes survival meant ripping loose those domestic roots." 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Transphobia, Blood, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

sammy357's review against another edition

dark tense fast-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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content, Transphobia, Violence, Religious bigotry, and Murder

Moderate: Medical content and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Sexual assault and Abortion