Reviews with content warning for Fatphobia - Walking Practice

Reviews tagging 'Fatphobia'

Walking Practice by Dolki Min

10 reviews

melliedm's review against another edition

dark funny reflective fast-paced

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

5.0

What's all this nonsense, you say? Just think of it as the ramblings of a life-form pretending to be human. It won't be that important to you, dear reader.

A strange, intensely evocative novel about the sensation of being alien to the society you live in, discussing concepts like masking, isolation, anxiety, and desire in a package equally relatable and…well, alien.

Maybe it’s just the autistic, chronically ill, queer in me—but yeah. This one hit home.

Content Warnings

hazel_oat's review against another edition

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dark reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

signeskov's review

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dark mysterious 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? It's complicated

3.25

Content Warnings

readingsofaslinky's review

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funny reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

Holy bodily hell!! This book is not in fact like squid games unless you are imaging a giant gender less squid playing games with humanity. Yeah, that’s not what you thought, huh? I’d say this gave me more Jamaica Kincaid’s Girl meets Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground meets Kang and Kodos from the Simpsons. Weird, queer, explicit, and thought provoking; I’m glad I was recommended to read this!

Content Warnings

kaiyakaiyo's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny reflective sad 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

5.0

buying this in print both because it was lovely and because my ereader did not do the art justice!

wow! what can i say. such a fresh premise, the narrative voice was so refreshing, i don’t think I’ve ever read a book anything like this. if you have, PLEASE recommend! favorite book this year i think

unapologetically queer and making very interesting points about who this world is designed for both physically and in a more abstract sense. definitely graphic and gory but that takes a surprising backseat to the emotions of the main char. idk this book was just great and a lovely opener for Halloween month.

Content Warnings

danielles_reads's review against another edition

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dark funny fast-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

4.0

I wondered how it was even possible to divide something with so many visible variants into just two groups [men and women]. But humans keep bringing up their criteria and judge me by it. In the subway, in the street, in restaurants, in shopping malls, in parks . . . their expressions and words that question my humanity irrespective of where I am made me tear myself apart and rebuild myself piece by piece. I’ve invested close to ten years of my time figuring out what exactly their criteria are. My conclusion is that there are no such criteria.

This book is sooo weird lol. I knew it would be weird going in, but somehow it ended up being even weirder than I thought. There is a huge focus on sex, with explicit sexual content combined with blood and gore in a way that I’m sure will turn off a lot of readers. There are also a few fatphobic descriptions that felt entirely unnecessary to the story.

I’m always a fan of stories about aliens observing humanity from the point of view of an outsider, so I liked this book from that standpoint. It had a lot to say about humanity’s rules and expectations for how people should act, especially in terms of gender roles, and how isolating that can be.

This book doesn’t have much of a plot, and is mostly just the day-to-day life of the main character. It did start feeling a little repetitive in the second half (so many complaints about stairs lol), but then the book ended. The ending was pretty sudden and kind of bittersweet, but I think it worked well for the story.

Mumu (cute!) is finally taken down by someone of their own kind.

The real highlight of the book is the character’s extremely sardonic way of speaking directly to the reader. This really differentiates the book from other alien characters, and is strengthened even more by the audiobook narrator, who did a fantastic job bringing this strange character to life. There were also some cool sound effects that enabled the listener to feel as disoriented as the MC does. The ebook also made tons of interesting stylistic choices to convey the alien’s shifting mindset, so I was glad I had a copy of it along with the audio.

There is not much world building in this book, which I think was fine for the story the author wanted to tell. We got a tiny bit of the alien’s backstory, but the story mostly leaned into the weird aspects of the alien’s physical body and lifestyle on Earth. Really this book feels more like horror than science fiction.

Overall, I think Dolki Min wrote a very unique story, and Victoria Caudle’s translation was very effective. I’d definitely be interested in reading more from them.

To tell the truth, having someone not reply and treat me as a nonentity is a teeth-chatteringly frightening experience. There are so many people who ignore someone as naturally as eating. […] Answering human leeches like her is almost like a reflex for me, probably because the violence of going unanswered has cut me to my core.

Honestly, relatable

Content Warnings

lbelow's review against another edition

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medium-paced

4.0

If not for the fatphobia, (it is one thing to have an unlikeable main character

compare a fat female-coded character they see as prey to large mammals, and quite another for said character to be unbathed in such a way as to be described as being covered in sweat and shit that transfers to the main character during sex)

, I would have given this book 5 stars. For one thing, it is really f***king weird and I love that. For another, the themes of gender performativity and transness are top notch. And so many passages make my little disabled heart glad. I related SO MUCH to this journey of invisible disability, chronic pain, and an uncooperative body. For these reasons, I consider it well worth the read (though check the content warnings).

Content Warnings

chrisp189's review

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dark sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

pao_reynard's review

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challenging dark fast-paced

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

3.5

Content Warnings

suzyreadsbooks's review

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4.0

a very queer, gory, gross alien story w thoughtful commentary on gender, disability, community.

in the translator’s note, Victoria Caudle describes working to “dismember genitals from gender and walk the organ-strewn line between ravenous lover and serial killer,” which gives you a taste for the way this book goes. saw a negative review that complained about the narrator being unlikeable and like…yeah lol

the audiobook was fun, full of the playful stretched & distorted language used throughout the book

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