Reviews tagging 'Slavery'

Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh

38 reviews

sarahsbookss's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense slow-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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Physical abuse, Vomit, Abortion, Adult/minor relationship, Death of parent, Death, Incest, Animal death, Self harm, Cannibalism, Child death, Classism, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Slavery, Abandonment, Alcohol, Body horror, Murder, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual violence, Suicide, and Sexual assault

vdparedes's review against another edition

dark reflective tense medium-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? Yes

3.5

it’s probably the weirdest thing i’ve ever read next to a hundred years of solitude

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Child abuse, Child death, Classism, Murder, Pregnancy, Rape, Religious bigotry, Slavery, Torture, Adult/minor relationship, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Alcohol, Emotional abuse, Cannibalism, Miscarriage, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Suicide, Violence, Sexual content, Animal cruelty, Death, Domestic abuse, Excrement, and Incest

xcrowingx's review against another edition

challenging dark funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Misogyny, Cannibalism, Slavery, Suicide, Sexual violence, Religious bigotry, Suicidal thoughts, Rape, Pregnancy, Physical abuse, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Sexual content, Pedophilia, and Murder

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Alcohol

quietlex's review against another edition

dark funny sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I loved this book. It’s disturbing, uncomfortable, and makes you feel icky inside, but it is written beautifully. So many horrible things happen- sexual assault, imprisonment, suicide, cannibalism, murder, drought, starvation, greed, religious trauma… and lots more I won’t mention, this book has it all. You hate every character, yet can’t wait to turn the page to see what they do next. Nothing is predictable, besides maybe the legitimacy of heirs. Trigger warnings galore, but a captivating story. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Sexism, Pregnancy, Pedophilia, Incest, Child death, Cannibalism, Rape, Abandonment, Physical abuse, Miscarriage, Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail, Infidelity, Death, Child abuse, Blood, Suicide, Slavery, Sexual assault, Grief, Excrement, Animal death, Abortion, Sexual harassment, and Murder

shoohoob's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

1.0

I just don’t like Ottessa Moshfegh books. 

Not as gruesome as people make it out to be. Maybe I’ve just been on the internet for far too long though 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Rape, Religious bigotry, Slavery, Suicide, Incest, Infidelity, Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Alcohol, Child abuse, Child death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gore, Abandonment, Ableism, Bullying, Death, Grief, Animal death, and Toxic relationship

mraddd's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Body horror, Classism, Violence, Death, Death of parent, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Incest, Abandonment, Ableism, Pregnancy, Rape, and Animal death

Minor: Abortion, Slavery, Suicide, and Xenophobia

bontals's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

“Will you pray for them, Father?’
‘Of course. I’ll speak to God directly.”

A dark and brutal book. Truly stomach churning at times. A fucked up mirror into Western lives, both as lord and peasant. I love magical realism.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Excrement, Gore, Misogyny, Self harm, Sexual violence, Suicide, Cannibalism, Child death, Death of parent, Incest, Domestic abuse, Kidnapping, Rape, Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Abortion, Animal death, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Murder, Sexual assault, Slavery, Physical abuse, and Torture

orla_h's review against another edition

challenging dark tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Child abuse, Death, Cannibalism, and Rape

Moderate: Animal death, Abandonment, Alcohol, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Suicide, and Slavery

Minor: Child death and Vomit

emziesreads's review against another edition

dark funny slow-paced

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

3.25

This is not your average historical fiction read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cannibalism

Moderate: Excrement, Murder, Gore, Slavery, and Incest

ceallaighsbooks's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious 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

“Marek looked into the bandit’s eyes. They were green, like his own. But they were cruel eyes, Marek thought. If he got closer, he thought, he might see the Devil in them… Even if the boy were strong enough to lift the stocks and help the bandit run away into the woods, he wouldn’t. God was watching.”

TITLE—Lapvona 

AUTHOR—Ottessa Moshfegh

PUBLISHED—2022

PUBLISHER—Jonathan Cape London (Penguin Random House UK)

GENRE—literary horror; medieval historical fantasy

SETTING—imaginary village in medieval Europe

MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—horror, body horror, intimacy & abuse, feudalism, famine, oppression by the Church & the rich, cycles of violence, found family (kind of?), power & control, faith & belief, death & the futility of living

WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

CHARACTERS—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

STORY/PLOT—⭐️⭐️⭐️

PHILOSOPHY—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“He remembered the song Ina sang while she nursed him sometimes. ‘I’ll be dead and you’ll be dead,’ a cheery song meant to soothe Marek into the lull of a certain infinity.”

First of all this book is the most disturbing book that I have ever read. 🙃 So. Be awares. 😂

This book almost felt like a subversion of the medieval historical fiction subgenre—almost as though the author was disgusted by the nostalgia and romanticization surrounding the genre and wants to show her readers what this timeperiod was *really* like. 😅 But is Moshfegh’s insight into human nature hyperbolically pessimistic or brutally honest?

I think what I most appreciated about this book was that if any one of these MCs existed in any other novel, they would be the most disgusting, repulsive villain you’d ever encountered and you would feel just gross the whole time reading their parts of that story. But they’re not in 12 different novels, they’re all together in one novel. And in this novel, they’re not villains, they’re just people.

I would recommend this book to probably no one but that’s just because it’s so disturbing. This book is best read as an allegory for what happens when resources are unequally distributed between members of society and pro-community values are replaced with oppressive, antispiritual, religious laws.

Final thoughts: Ultimately I think this book was *too* disturbing for me for me to be able to say that I *enjoyed* it 😅, but I would still say that I thought this book was pretty good.

“But God wasn’t listening, God didn’t care about Jude. God was busy lifting the sun for another day. And so the sun rose on Lapvona.”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

TW // the ENTIRE BOOK is a TW: including animal cruelty, body horror, cannibalism, and especially for graphic child abuse, murder, & rape (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)

Further Reading—

• I feel like I’m going to end up reading all of Moshfegh’s books out of sheer morbid curiosity… 😅
• COMPANY OF LIARS, by Karen Maitland
• GINGERBREAD, by Robert Dinsdale

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Religious bigotry, Murder, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Rape, Body horror, and Cannibalism