Reviews tagging 'Drug abuse'

Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite

102 reviews

hoarding_wyrm's review

challenging dark tense fast-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Rape, Cannibalism, Death, Drug abuse, Gore, Sexual violence, Body horror, Sexual content, Addiction, Violence, Vomit, and Murder

eris_in_chains's review

challenging dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.75

Thoroughly enjoyed this book though I must say that it's very much a product of its time (cannot tell whether the author intented to fetishize East Asian men here.) An interesting Jeffrey Dahmer fanfic.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Terminal illness, Body horror, Murder, Sexual content, Violence, Sexual assault, Cannibalism, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Death, and Rape

Moderate: Police brutality, Addiction, Alcohol, Drug abuse, Blood, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Medical content, and Physical abuse

motor's review against another edition

dark emotional sad 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

2.0

The premise is an interesting take on true crime and it’s written really well, but the content is awful. Many people would be deeply disturbed by this, I could push through as I wanted to know what happened next but there’s a lot of unnecessary themes added. Necrophilia, a lot of it, which I guess makes sense for serial killers but also, an Asian fetish.  Very clearly the authors fetish as the way Tran is described is disgusting and the words used to describe him are dehumanizing, Luke’s personality revolves around his Asian fetish. Lots of slurs that I’m almost 100% sure the author cannot use in real life, all of it unnecessary. Genuinely who thinks of stuff like this, 2 stars because it’s unfortunately written well. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Sexual violence, Cannibalism, Torture, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Alcohol, Gore, Violence, Racial slurs, Drug use, Drug abuse, Rape, and Murder

everyotherpageorso's review against another edition

dark sad slow-paced

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

I don’t know how I can give this a star rating.
Well written but it’s a book you endure rather than enjoy, which I guess is the point.

Allusion to Konerak Sinthasomphone at the end was really heartbreaking. If you aren’t familiar with the case, Konerak was 14 years old when he escaped Jeffrey Dahmer after being attacked, and police were alerted of an injured and naked boy in the area. Dahmer showed up, said they were lovers, and the police allowed Dahmer to take the boy back to his, where he killed him, despite the protestations of many African-American bystanders.
In the novel’s very clear reference to this incident, it is Jay who is allowed to leave with the injured and naked Tran, despite the protestations of an unnamed black musician, who is ignored and berated with slurs.
  While I understand the objective of putting a real life example of police incompetence (especially when it pertains to marginalized victims) in the novel, I still think it’s  disrespectful to the victim’s memory, as it seemed to me that it was not so much a reference or allusion as it was a line-by-line fictionalization of a real murder, eroticized through the perspective of his murderers. Yes, we do get Tran’s perspective during this as well, but I don’t think this offsets the disrespect of it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Homophobia, Torture, Addiction, Cannibalism, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Drug use, Suicide, and Drug abuse

jully_bean's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Alcohol, Toxic relationship, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Sexual violence, Torture, Blood, Racial slurs, Violence, Rape, Suicide, Sexual content, Body horror, Dysphoria, Gore, Homophobia, Infidelity, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Kidnapping, Pandemic/Epidemic, Pedophilia, Murder, Excrement, Addiction, Sexual assault, Cannibalism, Police brutality, and Terminal illness

dmcvey2719's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Excrement, Physical abuse, Murder, Blood, Body horror, Death, Gore, Cannibalism, Hate crime, and Homophobia

bespokecompost's review against another edition

challenging 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

3.0

I don’t think anyone needed to write jeffrey dahmer fanfiction but at least it’s written well. Answering the are these characters loveable question made me laugh out loud tho

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Alcohol, Torture, Chronic illness, Addiction, Cannibalism, Violence, Toxic relationship, Suicide, Sexual violence, Drug use, Gore, Blood, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Drug abuse, Homophobia, and Incest

moosereads1's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• 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

4.0

A story that truly disturbs me and makes me shudder is a rare find, and exquisite corpses did just that. If you want a book that will traumatize you, this is the one. It takes you into the minds of two serial killers who, when combined, come together in a near picture perfect image of Jeffrey Dahmer and it is as utterly horrifying and disturbing as such a story should be. There were moments in which I had no words, just shock - however, in a good way rather than how many extreme horror books sacrifice good writing for shock value. Brite’s writing managed to make even the most disturbing scenes sound eloquent. However, the one issue I had was the synopsis compared to the content - it advertises that the two killers spend their time with the perfect victim, yet there are only a few scenes at the very end of the book in which they do so. Regardless, this was a great disturbing book and I’m going to find something light hearted to feel better about myself and my mental state after choosing this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Blood, Drug abuse, Addiction, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Body horror, Cannibalism, Death, Gore, Murder, Terminal illness, Violence, and Rape

adorableautist's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

2.0

If you're looking into William Joseph Martin's (formerly known as Poppy Z. Brite) notorious queer splatterhouse opus, then you likely already have some sense of what you're getting into with this one. Its indulgences in sexuality and gratuitous violence is genuinely difficult to read, and I almost gave up on the book multiple times right up to the last few pages.

Exquisite Corpse lacks the campy revelry, magical realism, or self conscious introspection that marks most of the splatterhouse lit that is actually worth reading. Instead it ambitiously attempts to grapple with the cruel confluenceof queerness and violence that became the dominant culural narrative for gay men in the eighties and nineties. Most characters in the book are HIV positive and nearly all of them have received, witnessed, or inflicted grotesque violence by the end of the book. 

This willfully tasteless literary construction might've amounted to something genuinely compelling if it hadn't undermined itself by depicting its serial killer characters as romantically powerful and hyper inteligent super villains. For all of the literary talent on display, which is by no means meager, the end result feels juvenile in its romanticization of serial killers. The monstrous characters would have better served the the book's emotional and thematic needs, no matter how sweetly nihilistic they might be, if they had been allowed to be altogether more pathetic than enticing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Homophobia, Murder, Drug abuse, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, and Rape

introverted_reads's review

dark fast-paced

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

4.0

well that was fucked up

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia, Adult/minor relationship, Cannibalism, Murder, Terminal illness, Sexual assault, Torture, Vomit, Blood, Sexual violence, Drug abuse, Rape, Suicide, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Gore

Moderate: Homophobia, Racial slurs, and Xenophobia