Reviews tagging 'Vomit'

Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin

75 reviews

veeples's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny tense fast-paced

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

3.75

I ended up reading this book alongside a friend, which has made it more delightful. We’re both trans/nonbinary and laughed about the viscerally honest glimpse into queer and trans drama you only get when you’ve lived the experience. So if you are queer or trans, I think parts of this will be deeply relatable, which is lovely. I love the complexities of the five main POV characters, especially

Ramona, a trans chaser, who is just as complex and yet still unforgiveable, which the author does not shy away from at all. I appreciate that: the people we hate the most have complex inner lives and that does nothing to abate their part in the violence they partake in and allow to happen.

My main gripes with this story is plotting falls in part 2 of the book. Lots of things happen, and I wish it were written in a fashion that grounds the reader more than it did. I also found myself wishing for more insight to personal relationships between the characters to better appreciate the tragedy of events that happens. Because it was not developed as well, the back half of this book lost a bit of emotional potency.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Body shaming, Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Cannibalism, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Deadnaming, Grief, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol

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

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

kaschaller's review against another edition

dark emotional tense fast-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Body horror, Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Murder, Pregnancy, Outing, War, and Injury/Injury detail

wildeflower's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny sad medium-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? No

4.25

I thought this book was really well done and very interesting. It was extremely gory, and there was one part in the end that grossed me out a lot, but overall I thought it was very impactful and seemed to me (a cis woman) to have good trans representation. It also provided a lot of social commentary on not only lgbtq rights but also classism, racism, sexism, and nationalism. Overall was definitely worth the read!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cursing, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Grief, Murder, Outing, Sexual harassment, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Alcoholism, Cancer, Child death, Deadnaming, Drug use, Fatphobia, Death of parent, Outing, Alcohol, and Classism

This is a book about a group of transwomen trying to survive an apocalypse where they're being hunted by literal TERFS, and so there is so much trans violence, slurs, hate crimes, etc. towards trans women / trans femmes.

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

vexedfox's review

challenging dark 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? It's complicated

5.0

This book was impossible to put down in a grabbing an electric fence sort of way. The world-building was superb and the characters were heart-breaking. This was hard to get through but I'm glad I did.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Body horror, Death, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Cannibalism, Murder, Pregnancy, Outing, Dysphoria, War, and Injury/Injury detail

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

flags's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark 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

4.5

A brutal take on the zombie genre, body horror and sharp commentary with diverse cast of characters. Uses the conventions of the genre to create a world that takes the hateful contentions of transphobes to their logical conclusions. Every protagonist is wonderfully complex with insecurities and skills and hang ups and something at stake in the narrative. Might be hard to parse if you aren't familiar with the humour, controversies, and cultural touchstones of the lgbt and queer communities, but it's very clear about it's politics as a novel so when it talks about gender and race it's obvious what it's trying to say. There's also a frequent amount of sex scenes for various reasons and they aren't superfluous as they all say something about the characters involved. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Child death, Deadnaming, Death, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Vomit, Medical content, Cannibalism, Murder, Pregnancy, Outing, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Dysphoria, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Religious bigotry

ramreadsagain's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

This book has every content warning under the sun but I just wanted to highlight an extreme content warning for violence, sexual content (inc. rape), and transphobia. This left me an emotional wreck and I am usually very thick-skinned.

My rating for this honestly could have gone either way so I have decided to go down the middle with three stars. At its core it's a (not original but in quite an original setting) critique on TERFs and how their transphobia is so overpowering that they pretty much stop caring about anything else. Even the literal zombie-cis-men overrunning the planet. There is a lot of emphasis on their hypocrisy, as they allow some trans women to live as sex workers for their own gratification (in a 'turning a blind eye' kind of way but ultimately killing them too), as well as force-transitioning young men for their army (their solution to the threat of male puberty turning them into monsters). They will allow trans existence and transition under their own terms, as long as they can control the bodies exactly how they want. They consider their castrated/medically transitioned young men to be women, but fake women, because they have the right genitals, highlighting how TERFs' view of womanhood only really extends to external sex characteristics.

Another important point is the critique of TERFs' 'feminism' which never extends beyond simply a society of role reversal. They envision and want to create a world of female supremacy still within the violent, oppressive capitalist system. At several points in the book, characters note how the TERFs are 'no better than men' and 'doing to them what men did to women'.

Overall I rate this positively because of the above, as I do believe this should be an important part of queer literature.

The book has just as many downsides though which do bring my rating down. Violence for violence's sake seems to be just how the author writes but it was a bit much, and at some point you just become a bit numb to it. The characters do also seem to recover very quickly from life-threatening injuries. I really didn't like the constant sexual content, which was usually uncomfortable, graphic, and repulsive. The POVs were often difficult to work out, with characters not having a distinct voice, and it wasn't clear when POVs changed until you saw a different 'narrator name' a few paragraphs in. This meant I often had to reread sections to understand them from someone else's POV to whose I originally thought it was. The characters themselves were unlikeable, which is not an issue in and of itself but they weren't even really distinguishable from each other. The book also had a slump in the middle third that was quite difficult to push through and the book felt much longer than it is. 

The book's treatment of fat people and POC made me uncomfortable. Size and race were often used as the only descriptor for a character, and Indi's extreme self hatred and the constant reference to her size (in quite inventive ways) got old very fast. The TERFs were also constantly referred to as nazis or neo nazis, which was a poor decision in my opinion. They did not demonstrate massive levels of white supremacy (unlike many irl TERFs - I understand the use of neo nazi when referring to actual twitter terfs at times) which made the descriptor just feel like a quip. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Cursing, Death, Fatphobia, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Murder, Dysphoria, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child death, Deadnaming, Toxic relationship, Excrement, Pregnancy, Outing, and Toxic friendship