Reviews tagging 'Vomit'

Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty

34 reviews

seyfert's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad tense

• 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Addiction, and Alcoholism

Moderate: Grief, Miscarriage, and Child death

Minor: Mental illness, Violence, Bullying, Physical abuse, and Vomit

anahisa's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense 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

4.5

THE HITS KEPT COMING AND THEY NEVER STOPPED. 

A reading experience that made me feel both haunted + hunted! Love how Talty subverts horror tropes in these stories. I’m finding myself at a loss for words because it’s such an incredibly raw narrative it feels wrong to talk about in passing. While I highly recommend picking this one up, advise the trigger warnings!! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cursing, Rape, Violence, Vomit, Dementia, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Murder, Child death, Grief, Addiction, Alcoholism, Car accident, Death, Infertility, and Sexual assault

heatherjchin's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Drug abuse, Alcoholism, Drug use, and Dementia

Moderate: Racism, Child death, Toxic friendship, and Mental illness

Minor: Miscarriage, Emotional abuse, Vomit, Toxic relationship, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Panic attacks/disorders, Confinement, Blood, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Stalking, Physical abuse, Bullying, and Death of parent

runningjenw's review against another edition

dark 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

This book of stories centers on drug addiction, detoxing, broken families, and lack of growth and self-awareness. It is sad people raising a generation of sad people in a sad situation. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse and Vomit

percyu's review against another edition

dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Drug use, Vomit, Drug abuse, Alcohol, and Alcoholism

Moderate: Death, Rape, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Child death, and Sexual violence

jayisreading's review against another edition

dark emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

4.25

These interconnected stories were so raw yet tender. Focusing on friends and family, generational trauma, life on the reservation, and just the general pains of growing up, Talty explores these themes through David, who serves as a protagonist of sorts for each story. Each story has its pain and grief that the characters go through, but there’s always space to show love still exists, despite everything.

Talty is a phenomenal storyteller, tugging at your heartstrings during some moments due to heart wrenching loss, but then having you laughing at others. These stories resist glamor and comfort in favor of presenting everyday life as is, the realities of one Penobscot boy’s/man’s world. This isn’t to say that the writing is plain— Quite the contrary, Talty has a really wonderful way with words, especially when it comes to dialogue; you really get a sense of each character’s persona and beliefs from these conversations.

I think the one thing that threw me off a little was the jumping around in time, which, in turn, affected the pacing a little. In some instances, we’re looking at the world from David’s perspective as a boy. In others, he’s a young man. It was a little hard to get into the stories at times, as a result, but I will say that I don’t think I was in the right headspace to fully appreciate these stories.

Whatever the case, I’m looking forward to what more Talty has in store for his readers. This collection of short stories really packed a punch. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Drug abuse, Addiction, Alcohol, Drug use, Child death, Dementia, Alcoholism, and Death

Moderate: Miscarriage, Racism, Car accident, Vomit, and Violence

Minor: Sexual violence and Blood

mariep97's review against another edition

dark emotional informative sad

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death and Drug abuse

Moderate: Vomit and Alcoholism

riverestyx's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

This is the first novel in years that has had me hanging on and needing more. I would do extra chores to just keep listening and trying to find out where the story weaves. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Dementia, Injury/Injury detail, Addiction, Alcohol, Toxic relationship, Alcoholism, Child death, Drug abuse, and Violence

Moderate: Pregnancy, Stalking, and Miscarriage

Minor: Racial slurs, Racism, Genocide, and Medical content

kyladenae94's review against another edition

dark emotional sad fast-paced

5.0

could’ve read this in one sitting if i didn’t have to do silly things like work. every single one of these stories—all of which are about the same boy/man, swinging back & forth through his life to spread out the many experiences we see through his eyes—was absolutely heartbreaking. did i identify with the child who takes on more responsibility than they’re ready for in order to make the people around them happy and ease burdens even though, again, they’re an actual child & probably aren’t ready for that and then eventually it all starts to fall apart & they’re not really sure how to put it together so they just sort of blunder around & hope it works out

i mean. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Vomit, Addiction, Child death, Drug use, Grief, and Mental illness

Moderate: Sexual assault

tigger89's review against another edition

dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

4.0

This collection is the darkest book I've read in quite some time. Themes of addiction and depression are present in most of the stories, with occasional dips into even darker territory. In addition to suggesting content warnings in general, I want to mention that cigarettes in particular are prominent. That said, (what I believe to be) the chronologically penultimate story as well as the final story have elements of hope to them, so the picture isn't entirely bleak.

Once I figured out what was going on, the non-chronological storytelling choice was genius. It takes a bit of puzzling out, but the reading experience is greatly enhanced by having to figure out where you are in time, what are the characters up to, wait a minute Paige isn't here because why? What happened!? You'll find out after several more stories, when the narrative finally gets around to it. It sounds frustrating, but due to the brevity of the stories(and the collection as a whole - it clocks in under 300 pages) it didn't bother me, because I knew I'd find out soon.

The characters featured in these stories are vividly real, but deeply flawed, individuals who make bad choices, repeatedly. Regardless, I found myself caring for them, even as I was so incredibly frustrated with their actions. This might not be everyone's cup of tea, so be aware going in that these characters are made of flaws, and it's not necessarily something that ever gets set right.

It's interesting to me that, after reading some other people's thoughts, I saw that wasn't the only one who was mistaken about the content of this collection when I picked it up. I believe it's a combination of the cover design, the title, and the way the stories were teased on the back cover, but it's funny to me that there's such a misconception that this collection features horror stories. It doesn't. On numerous occasions you may (or should) briefly be horrified, but the focus of these stories is not to evoke any kind of sustained horror. Rather, it's slice of life about family, poverty, trauma, loss, and ultimately, choosing to live.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Dementia, Child death, Addiction, Alcohol, Vomit, Drug use, Miscarriage, Rape, Suicide attempt, and Child abuse

Moderate: Infertility and Pregnancy

Minor: Car accident and Blood