Reviews tagging 'Gore'

Severance by Ling Ma

31 reviews

aklovekorn's review

reflective tense slow-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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death of parent, Gore, Gun violence, Murder, Sexual content, Suicide, Toxic friendship, Pandemic/Epidemic, Xenophobia, Gaslighting, Grief, Pregnancy, Death, Toxic relationship, Child death, and Terminal illness

darthbiblia's review against another edition

dark funny 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

5.0

Whoa. This book came out years before COVID, but the descriptions of the early stages were so uncanny. The dry humor and office politics, concerns about foreign labor and gender issues. I loved the story of her immigrant parents assimilating in the United States, then bringing her as a small child. This was a beautiful story, and I was sad that it ended. I look forward to more from this author. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Violence, Death, Sexism, Vomit, Confinement, Death of parent, Gore, Pregnancy, Grief, Misogyny, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Terminal illness

tenderbench's review against another edition

dark reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Vomit, Dementia, Death of parent, Pandemic/Epidemic, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, Confinement, Death, and Pregnancy

jayla_hh's review against another edition

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.0

Lit fic zombies!! Work culture!! What keeps a person alive!!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gore

pinkninja2000's review against another edition

funny hopeful reflective tense 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

5.0

A very contemporary look at zombie novels. Ma does a beautiful job at creating characters and showing their relationships to one another. Her formatting is unbelievable and you can tell how much detail she put into this novel. I laughed and actually sobbed!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gore

applesodaperson's review against another edition

So my biggest problem with this book was that it was trying to do way to too much. It felt like it was trying to be a literary fiction character study, while also being a dystopian apocalypse book. But this just led to the tones of the two plot lines being drastically different, and the switch between them being very jarring.
I also just didn’t think Candace was a very compelling character. 
The one thing I did like was the virus. The idea was cool, and the beginning of the pandemic was spooky and reminded me of Covid, even though this book was written before. 
The reason I decided to dnf this even past the halfway point was that I just realized I did not care about what happened to the characters or how the story ended.
Listened to on Libby.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore and Death

Minor: Pregnancy

ktdakotareads's review

dark sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic and Death

Moderate: Confinement, Blood, Gore, Grief, Death of parent, Body horror, Drug use, and Injury/Injury detail

kaiyakaiyo's review against another edition

dark emotional slow-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

2.0

i was gonna be generous and do 3 stars because the cultural parts of this book were compelling, but frankly this book was a snooze fest with a whimper of an ending 

warm bodies starring nicolas fucking hoult managed to make me feel more about an apocalypse and the ~literary~ elements of this book are so overwrought it borders on self-sucking. the most poignant moments in this story are overshadowed by clunky cult shenanigans, a terrible flashback and flash-flashback structure, and an incredibly silly detour into strange & unnecessary sex. not to sound like the internet purity police but the phrase “Schwarzenegger dick” should be banned on every continent. jail for 1000 years

when are synopses going to stop using “satirical” and “deadpan” when they just mean that the author is too dry to write an actual apocalyptic novel so they wrote some handwavy overly meta shadow of one & called it literary fiction. boooooooo tomatoes tomatoes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Blood, Sexism, Misogyny, Murder, Gore, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, and Religious bigotry

skyba3's review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Stalking, Suicide, Terminal illness, Child death, Dementia, Grief, Pregnancy, Religious bigotry, Addiction, Death, Gore, Xenophobia, Sexual content, Body horror, Death of parent, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Confinement

Moderate: Blood, Drug use, Classism, Addiction, Racism, Alcohol, Vomit, Drug abuse, and Cursing

joensign's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious 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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Suicide, Confinement, Death of parent, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic, Gore, and Death

Moderate: Body horror and Pregnancy