Reviews with content warning for Excrement - The Pisces

Reviews tagging 'Excrement'

The Pisces by Melissa Broder

28 reviews

definebookish's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny medium-paced

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

4.0

If not for the fact that I read Melissa Broder’s latest novel, Milk Fed, earlier this month, I’d be telling you that The Pisces is the wildest book I’ve encountered in a long time. Instead I’ll start by noting: mate, that ship has sailed. This one is equally wild, equally weird, and yet… somehow more wonderful.

Where Milk Fed has a slightly dreamlike quality that makes the narrative feel not quite real, The Pisces reads more like a gritty fairytale. This one’s explicit scenes are startlingly unairbrushed. Following a break up and a breakdown, thirty-eight-year-old protagonist Lucy spends a summer dog-sitting in her sister’s beach house, attending group therapy, trying to rescue her thesis on Sappho, and going on gross Tinder dates. Oh, and boning a merman.

There’s definitely depth here, but expect to find Broder’s symbolism about as subtle as a d*ck pic. I don’t think that’s a negative; both The Pisces and Milk Fed are about protagonists who are in therapy, and ‘fun with psychoanalysis’ is very much the vibe. It really did make me laugh at points, and grimace at so many others (it’s not often you find yourself mentally shouting ‘look behind you!’ at a character because you see their UTI looming before they do.)

At the same time, there’s a real darkness underlying The Pisces. Amidst the irreverence and the paranormal and the satirical look at Tinder encounters, Lucy’s suffering makes for intense reading. At times her voice feels too much, and on occasion – like her emotionally-unavailable ex – I could feel myself starting to close off to her.

I don’t quite know how to extricate a personal verdict on The Pisces from everything I’ve said above. It’s original and uncompromising, but also a little bit repulsive. I liked it.

Content Warnings

missbreathing's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional sad slow-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

3.75

Well. I was warned that this would be a weird one. Usually, I like weird. Gimme weird any day! But this might have been a bit too weird for me. I usually like to stick to full or half star ratings, but 3.75⭐️ just felt right for “The Pisces.” Some thoughts:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
“The Pisces” follows Lucy, who spends the summer in Venice Beach to recover from her recent breakup and work on her doctoral thesis. In the process, she falls in love with a merman.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
The blend of realism and fantasy was so well done that it almost hurt my head to follow. Honestly, the merman stuff is done really really well.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I was definitely warned about the merman + human sex, but, oddly enough, that wasn’t what disturbed me? The sex was definitely explicit and at times uncomfortable, so do keep that in mind! But it was actually being inside the MC’s head that weirded me out. It could be very triggering, sometimes cringey, but mostly just dark and oppressive.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
In the beginning, I thought this would be one of my favorite reads of the year. The prose is smart and funny and peppered with subtle hints of feminism. The writing is stunning! I also really liked the ending. But there was a point about halfway through where I just wanted it to end. It’s slow paced, and while I understand the stylistic choice, I think the story would have benefitted from less meandering.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I’m glad I read this, but I wish I had known how sad it was going to be. Please check the trigger warnings for this one, as there are a LOT of potentially triggering things in it.

Content Warnings

pennym_'s review against another edition

Go to review page

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

2.0

listen this book is so weird and it has merit and things to say but a couple of things that happened in it ruined any takeaways for me.

i get why the dog had to die narratively but i just couldn't stomach the descriptions of abuse/neglect

Content Warnings

angharad's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

Content Warnings

zombiezami's review against another edition

Go to review page

I kept starting the book and then getting annoyed by the main character and stopping it, to the point where I dreaded that this was in my Libby queue. Not for me

Content Warnings

hungeberg's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark medium-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

1.0

This review is slightly graphic but won't be too spoilery.

First of all - i did debate giving this 0 or 0,5 stars. However i do find small things of marit in this book. Second of all I was recommended this which is why i choose to finish it even though i struggled with the getting through it.

Let's start with the good;
- It's a complicated story about love addiction with a magical realism twist which I in the big whole like.
- Lucy as a narrator was decent.

Things i disliked
- I'm not one for smutty/erotic books and especially not when the character participating in the sexual acts are not even enjoying it? Why would I want to read about bad hurtful sex in such detail? AND SO MANY TIMES?! And then when Lucy finally found a partner who she enjoyed to fuck then it was some weird very specific "kinky" shit that not everyone would like (least of all me?!).
- I am not a classics student or for that matter a literary one and therefore I don't really have any claim on knowing Sapho's poems that well. However I do as a queer woman find Sapho to be a queer icon/character who participates in romantic/sexual relationships with both genders but especially with women. And somehow the use of her as a character in this book to justify this heterosexual bullshit rubbed me the wrong way.
- the treatment of other women in this book is horrendous.

Things I hated
- Does such a thing as toxic heterosexuality exist? Because then this would be it?
- Lucy seems to learn a few lessons by the end of a book. BUT NOT NEARLY ENOUGH??? At least it wasn't written out in a way that make it seem like she will become a better person ESPECIALLY to the other women in her life.
- The treatment of the dog. Nough said.

Content Warnings

erickaonpaper's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark funny medium-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

3.5

Content Warnings

astronut's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark funny reflective sad fast-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Content Warnings

More...