Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

You Feel It Just Below the Ribs by Jeffrey Cranor, Janina Matthewson

8 reviews

gilroi's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

 Ultimately, this horror / dystopia / alt history severely pulls its punches with regard to the ending. It's barely spooky, barely horrific, and so light on the dystopian and alt-historical detail that the whole thing feels unsatisfying. The use of end notes to render unreliability and worldbuilding is pretty interesting, however.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Abandonment, War, and Child death

Moderate: Gun violence and Violence

Starvation, family separation, child separation, prison abuse, fascism

standardgoose's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Forced institutionalization, Death of parent, Death, and War

Moderate: Child abuse, Torture, and Child death

Minor: Gore

quinnjuliac's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Violence, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Death of parent, Confinement, Abandonment, and Child abuse

Psychological torture

gem114's review against another edition

challenging slow-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Abandonment, Child death, Child abuse, Death, Forced institutionalization, Mental illness, Murder, and Pregnancy

cheye13's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Murder, Pregnancy, War, Gaslighting, Mental illness, Torture, Death, Death of parent, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Violence

Moderate: Child abuse, Forced institutionalization, Emotional abuse, Abandonment, and Confinement

Minor: Gun violence and Gore

breq's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective 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

5.0

Terrifying and fascinating, and kept me guessing if it was an unreliable narrator, an unreliable annotator, both, or neither.  I love this style of fake history/memoir with multiple people contributing.  I choose to believe that

the publisher/annotator's constant reinforcement that this is fake and made up and of COURSE defamatory and NO ONE should believe this is in fact a complete CYA and they in fact agree in many places with the narrator.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Medical trauma, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Pregnancy and War

jayisreading's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

4.25

For fans of the podcast, Within the Wires, this book is for you. There’s so much more worldbuilding that will satisfy your needs to have more of this universe. A side note: I haven’t listened to the audiobook, but that that might be worth checking out to continue the audio drama experience— You technically don’t have to know anything about the podcast to enjoy this book, though more on this towards the end.

YFIJBTR is thought-provoking with the way it poses philosophical questions that border on the existential. More interestingly, though, is the way this story is narrated not by one but two narrators. And it’s here that you get into the heart of what this book is asking you to decide: How do you determine who to believe?

The book is an autobiography of our protagonist, Dr. Miriam Gregory, who guides the reader through her life and what’s happening in the increasingly dystopian world she lives in. Curiously, this autobiography has footnotes and interludes that counter much of what Dr. Gregory is writing, going so far as to accuse her of falsifying information or showing blatant ignorance. As the autobiography continues, this meta-narrator in the footnotes gets increasingly hostile towards Dr. Gregory, putting the reader in a position of working out whether they should believe the footnotes (which have been providing seemingly factual information), or Dr. Gregory’s account, who was present at these events.

I will say that I thought the pacing was a little wonky. It started off slow, found a good pace towards the middle, but then felt a little too fast towards the end. I think this might be especially off-putting for those who aren’t familiar with the podcast universe, just because more and more concepts were introduced towards the end that weren’t fully explained. Again, you can technically read this book without any knowledge of the WtW universe, but I can easily see why those unfamiliar with the podcast may find this book somewhat frustrating.

Overall, I enjoyed it, but I approached the book having listened to the podcast. The book is still worth checking out, especially for its approach to storytelling, but I do caution those unfamiliar with the podcast that it might be a little harder to fully enjoy it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gaslighting, Medical trauma, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Child abuse and Forced institutionalization

Minor: War

chicafrom3's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense 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

5.0

A tie-in to the podcast Within The Wires, unfolding the backstory of the Society through the autobiography of a woman who helped create some of the techniques that it was founded on.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Medical trauma, Ableism, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Child abuse and Child death