Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin

81 reviews

chetsky's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense 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? Yes

4.5

This book is disgusting, violent, horrifying, and campy. It also has a lot of heart. I loved it. My only criticism is that the gratuitous sex scenes got a little tedious. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Violence, Vomit, Deadnaming, Dysphoria, Gore, Grief, Animal death, Death, Excrement, Sexual content, War, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Medical content, Blood, Body horror, Murder, and Sexual assault

orireading's review against another edition

challenging dark 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? Yes

4.0

This was the goriest book I’ve ever read and I almost hit my limit a few times. HOWEVER! I kept going because I also found it to be an achingly beautiful reflection on kinship and systems of care 🥲💔 Major major content warnings.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Fatphobia, Fire/Fire injury, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Body shaming, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Grief, Gun violence, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Genocide, Hate crime, Misogyny, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Body horror, Cannibalism, Excrement, Gore, Medical content, Murder, Rape, Sexual content, Torture, Transphobia, and Vomit

klwilby's review

dark tense fast-paced

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

5.0

Dark, gruesome, and unflinching. I don’t read much horror but I could not put this book down. There was beautifully, brutally complex relationships throughout — I will say I would’ve loved to spend even more time with the three main characters, particularly Robbie. I’ll also say that I was surprised to see so many negative reviews of this book. It seems many readers violently missed the point of this book, or simply find depictions of queer bodies and intimacy to be inherently more graphic than cishet bodies and intimacy. Don’t let that stop you from picking this (admittedly bloody) gem. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cannibalism, Deadnaming, Genocide, Gore, Mental illness, Outing, Misogyny, Self harm, Animal death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Police brutality, Sexual violence, Transphobia, Violence, Gun violence, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Trafficking, Death, War, Rape, Sexual assault, and Suicidal thoughts

mlovesbooks's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Gruesome and heartbreaking and rageful and gory.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Murder, Sexual assault, Rape, Transphobia, Torture, Deadnaming, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual violence, Hate crime, Body horror, and Suicidal thoughts

childofmongreldogs's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

4.0

To start, this has a helluva lot of triggers to keep in mind. This book would 100% be an x-rated movie. There's a metric shit ton of blood, gore, curses, death, torture, sex, sexual assault etc along with things like dismemberment and just gross things in general. This is a read at your own risk kind of book.

This wasn't a book that I loved but the concept was really interesting and the writing was good. I sincerely don't really have much to complain about it either which is a nice change from a lot of the books I've been reading lately.

Basic concept is that the end of the world happens. This is definitely an interesting take on the idea of gendered diseases/pandemics that we've seen in other forms of media. This novel just takes into consideration the existence of trans people. Men (or, rather, anyone who has a significant amount of testosterone) ends up turning into a monster.

Honestly, I'm not one for excessive gore. I think my only exception to this would be Stephen Graham Jones but I might make another exception for Felker-Martin. This novel is exceptionally gory and pretty gross. Yet, she does a great job of selling us these characters, even the villainess of the story with this back drop of violence and dirt. I'll say here that Beth absolutely devastated me on so many levels.

If I had all day or the inclination to, I'd go point by point on some of the most unfair and ridiculous arguments made about this book being bad. Instead, I'll save myself the energy and just that I found a lot of other reviews to be absolutely ridiculous. Like, being mad about men being portrayed as blood thirsty monsters. Sorry, that's the story? There's a male main character who obviously isn't a monster lol. Finally, on this, while there is a lot of sex, it's really brief and not really that crazy. I'm surprised anyone has mentioned this when people were screwing and fucking in the Walking Dead, the Last of Us, Dawn of the Dead, literally any apocalyptic media has people getting down and dirty. I know for a fact some of you are reading erotica L M A O. Why are you mad at this one?

I felt that the narrative was actually really kind to the antagonists as well which was a genuine surprise to me considering how up in arms people got over this. Spoiler: the main antagonists beyond the blood thirsty monsters/zombies are called TERFs and they go around as a large group and route out those who aren't "XX" chromosomed. I will say that the reason this doesn't get a five stars for me is because of how after school special the author seemed at times about this point. I'd actually go so far as to say that the novel went too far in siding with the antagonists, even. Though, I suppose that fairness also lends some credibility and realism to their motivations.

Final sidenote that I finished the last half of this novel as an ebook instead of audio. There was nothing wrong with Katherina Pucciariello (the narrator) but this was definitely not the kind of book I wanted to listen to while in the car or washing dishes. She did a good job of differentiating the voices of the characters too. Just not my cup of tea.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Hate crime, Medical trauma, Murder, Outing, Cursing, Death, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Body horror, Fatphobia, Sexual violence, Ableism, Animal death, Blood, Dysphoria, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, Vomit, Body shaming, Transphobia, Gore, and Miscarriage

uhm_kai's review against another edition

dark emotional medium-paced

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

1.0

While the concept on which this book is based is interesting, and should be cool, the execution here is horrifying. The book contains body horror after body horror, written in mediocre prose, and honestly presents a really poor image of trans women. The characters are constantly sexualised, and constantly sexualise other characters at inappropriate and unrealistic moments. The concept could have been great, but unfortunately this book is just not it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Transphobia, Vomit, War, Eating disorder, Sexism, Dysphoria, Fatphobia, Genocide, Self harm, Suicide, Cannibalism, Misogyny, Murder, Torture, Trafficking, Hate crime, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Blood, Body horror, Gun violence, Pregnancy, Rape, Body shaming, Death, Gore, Grief, and Medical content

erikathered's review

dark sad tense fast-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

4.5

This novel may not appeal to everyone as it's written from a very particular perspective and for a very particular audience. But if you're within that audience, if you're interested in dark, tense fiction that explores trans experience through a new lens, you'll love this book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality, Trafficking, Gore, Outing, Body horror, Transphobia, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Rape, Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, Mental illness, Grief, Blood, Pregnancy, Injury/Injury detail, Hate crime, Violence, Death, Cursing, Dysphoria, and War

Moderate: Suicide, Slavery, Fatphobia, Deadnaming, Toxic friendship, and Eating disorder

Minor: Self harm, Ableism, Colonisation, Cancer, Racism, Death of parent, and Terminal illness

sphinxofblackquartz's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Gun violence, Rape, Body horror, Cannibalism, Transphobia, Violence, Hate crime, Death, Sexual assault, Dysphoria, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Sexual content, and Homophobia

Moderate: Body shaming, Fatphobia, and Medical content

Minor: Antisemitism, Genocide, Pregnancy, Miscarriage, War, Self harm, Toxic relationship, and Suicidal thoughts

taiy's review

dark emotional sad 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

Y the Last Man but more intense and horror! I really thought this was a good story, but the writing style was difficult for me. It felt very choppy and hard to follow for my brain. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Hate crime, Fatphobia, Death, Sexual content, Transphobia, Torture, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual violence, Rape, Deadnaming, Homophobia, and Pregnancy

breadwitchery's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• 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: Transphobia, Rape, Sexual content, Murder, Death, Gun violence, and Violence

Moderate: Gore, Suicidal thoughts, Fatphobia, Suicide, and Ableism

Minor: Religious bigotry, Cursing, Vomit, Drug use, Deadnaming, Outing, Self harm, Pregnancy, Racism, Pedophilia, Dysphoria, and Antisemitism