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emilycox96's review against another edition
3.5
Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Murder, and Sexual harassment
avkeenan's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Graphic: Gore, Torture, Violence, and Murder
Moderate: Terminal illness, Blood, and Alcohol
Minor: Drug use, Eating disorder, Sexual violence, and Vomit
bdingz's review against another edition
- 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
4.5
This was a wild ride and my first foray into splatterpunk. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it as much as I did! Creepy, funny, icky. I support women’s wrongs.
Graphic: Death, Gore, Sexual violence, Torture, Blood, and Murder
Moderate: Medical content, Grief, and Alcohol
Minor: Terminal illness and Cannibalism
lspain_eddington's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Maeve is certainly an antihero main character and I enjoyed her strangeness. She is funny in that she is sarcastic and crass and doesn’t really care what anyone thinks of her. I liked the *idea* that a woman could be unhinged and that she didn’t need to go through any specific trauma to be psychotic. But I don’t think that makes this book feminist (more on that later). The whole of the novel is a character study of Maeve and her psychoses and the people around her that “see” her. I thought this aspect of the story was interesting and honestly probably would’ve loved just to hear her inner dialogue sans the gore/sexual content.
All that said, it seemed like the book was shocking, gory, and graphic only for the sake of being shocking, gory, and graphic. I don’t think the gore or the graphic sexual content really added anything to the story other than shock value—which if that WAS the goal, it certainly accomplished that. But I’m also not leaving this book feeling like this accomplished anything feminist for me. It seemed that this book assumes a sort of post-feminism about society, but I could see a world in which someone (probably a man—sorry dudes) reads this and says, “yeah, the ladies are crazy.” I’d be curious to hear a different take on this, but to me it just felt like a misrepresentation of feminism as a movement, and the message got lost in the graphic-ness of everything else.
3 stars because I didn’t hate it, but probably not one I will be recommending to folks unless they’re into weird, gory stuff.
Content warnings: lots of gore and graphic sexual violence/sexual content
Graphic: Gore, Sexual content, and Violence
rowan27's review
- 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
Graphic: Drug use, Gore, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Cannibalism, and Murder
Moderate: Physical abuse
ladytanuks's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- 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
Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Rape
emilyyjjean's review
5.0
Graphic: Gore, Torture, and Murder
Moderate: Drug use, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual content
biobeetle's review against another edition
- 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
3.75
Graphic: Gore, Mental illness, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Torture, Blood, Excrement, and Murder
Moderate: Toxic relationship, Vomit, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol
Minor: Animal cruelty and Suicide
katizwitchy's review
- 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
5.0
My first thought after finishing this was "I need to walk this off."
Man, what a novel. If you have the stomach to read this, please do. Yes, it is awful and grotesque at times, but oh my god it is also ART. Women being horrible, complex, violent beings in the way men have been allowed to be for years is a perspective I didn't know I needed. The scariest thing about this novel is how easily you can find yourself agreeing with Maeve, seeing the line of thinking, right up until the brutal reality hits you full force and you feel the weight of shame and disgust for ever even slightly agreeing with her.
I cannot put into words how this novel affects me, other than saying that I will be thinking about it for a very long time. Where the R-rated scenes started to lose me, Leede would hook me back in with a beautiful piece of prose about grief, identity, and the depravedness and inherent evil that exists in simply being human. This book makes you confront the parts of yourself that are a bad person, even when you're nowhere near Maeve's level of bad person.
I didn't like American Psycho the film, mostly because it gave me anxiety from all of the violence against women, but switching the narrative and confronting our gendered understanding of violence made me approach with curiosity instead of fear and disgust. And I think that's what I'm left with. I have so many questions I'd love to ask the author, and lots to think about in terms of how I approach typical horror media.
If you don't have a stomach for some of the things I've described here, or aren't ready to confront darker shades of humanity than you deal with in your day-to-day, then don't read this. There were definitely parts that made me viscerally uncomfortable, as all good horror should have. But there were also very poignant commentaries on the idea of what makes an idol, what separates good and bad in a person, and what lies in between.
I don't know that I could pick up this book again. And, in my opinion, that's what makes a great psychological horror story.
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Drug use, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
henripop's review
- 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
3.0
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Kidnapping, Grief, Cannibalism, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail