Reviews tagging 'Cannibalism'

Maeve Fly by C.J. Leede

38 reviews

emilymae303's review

dark funny tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Definitely a shocking read with a lot of blood, gore and torture. Being from a female perspective is a nice twist on the classic serial killer trope and while there were themes that explored the inherent misogyny in most horror novels, it felt like the author didn’t dig deep enough into those themes and opted for just shock and gore instead. 

It’s a quick read and the dichotomous relationship between the setting “happiest place on earth,” mixed with the themes was dark and quirky.

 It ultimately read like a love story to LA, which seemed fitting given the fake persona Maeve tried to carry throughout the book, ultimately to succumb to her true darkness. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cannibalism, Rape, Gore, Death, Confinement, Torture, Body horror, Sexual violence, Murder, and Blood

palpatines_cat's review

dark funny tense fast-paced

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

4.0

Maeve Fly is fantastic for anyone that wants to get into Extreme Horror. It's a great starting point and the way that CJ Leeds writes is beautiful.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Death, Violence, Sexual assault, Torture, and Rape

Moderate: Cannibalism

rachelunabridged's review

dark 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

3.25

i am so conflicted about this book! on one hand, i really liked the exploration of this absolutely depraved character, but would i recommend this book to anyone, NO. because i don't want to be responsible for any mental scarring. y'all, i have seen things.

tbh, i had a hard time getting into this one at first because the beginning was just kinda meh. once it got good and started though, i found myself morbidly curious about how it was going to play out. i don't read a lot of extreme horror so i had a few "well that's enough of this book for today :)" moments. it's definitely not for the faint of heart.

i've been going back and forth about it for a few days now and settled on 3 stars, dropped from a possible 4. for one thing, this book heavily depends on the reader being familiar with american psycho (which i've never read, but know the broad strokes of), and i'm just not very impressed when an author uses a better known work as a springboard for their own. anything can serve as inspiration, but i felt like it was overplayed in this particular book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Sexual content, Gore, Murder, Alcohol, Body horror, Torture, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Violence, Rape, and Blood

Moderate: Cursing and Drug use

Minor: Cannibalism

kittiesss's review

dark funny tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Violence, Body horror, Excrement, Murder, Sexual violence, Death, Blood, Gore, and Rape

Minor: Cannibalism

ecn's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad fast-paced

• 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

4.75

Points off for the inclusion of (potentially?) Johnny Depp. No thanks

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Rape, Alcohol, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Murder, Stalking, Terminal illness, Vomit, Confinement, Death, Gore, Grief, Torture, Toxic relationship, Blood, Sexual content, Toxic friendship, Violence, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Misogyny, and Fatphobia

sarah984's review against another edition

dark 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

2.0

I picked this up because of the cool looking cover, after seeing it recommended as "feminist body horror" on Likewise. So if you are like me I will save you some time: it's not feminist or body horror. The cover is cool though.

The main character is a woman but she hates and/or belittles all other women (except her grandmother, who is a complete non-entity in this story) and thinks she's unique as a woman due to her misanthropy. The book makes a big deal about it being sexist that stories require women to have trauma to be villains when men can just do what they want, but then gives Maeve villain trauma. The romance is all "oh he was so much bigger than me" straight people crap.

Several quotes and entire scenes are lifted whole cloth from American Psycho but nothing interesting is done with that at all.

I really have to wonder who this book was for. I feel like it was somehow simultaneously too much and too tame, like it's not extreme horror because pretty much everything "extreme" happens off screen, but too much "extreme" content is implied for this to appeal to normies. Baffling book.

Some of the Halloween music trivia was interesting, so 2 stars.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Death, Medical content, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Terminal illness, and Murder

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Bullying, Confinement, Gore, Torture, Toxic relationship, Classism, Fatphobia, Misogyny, and Violence

Minor: Pedophilia, Abortion, Animal cruelty, Eating disorder, Grief, Alcohol, Cannibalism, Vomit, Drug use, Stalking, Physical abuse, Animal death, and Racism

anouverlinden_'s review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

4.5

This was, honestly, amazing. I did not expect to love it as much as I do. 

You can definitely see the influence/inspiration of American Psycho but make it feminist, which is the best thing you can come up with. As disturbing as Maeve is, I weirdly grew fond of her and was extremely distrought by the ending.

You would think one wouldn't get attached to two killers, who happen to find one another and have a promising future together. Well, I did grow extremely fond of them and was even rooting for them, which is pretty fucked up if you think about it but it also made the ending even worse than it may have been when I wasn't so attached to them. Maeve really grossed me out with what she did to people (but that's what I signed up for) yet the fact she got back together with Gideon made me as happy as would I have been reading a romance. When he said 'Maeve, me too' but she still killed him, I couldn't function anymore. My brain was shut down and I was in disbelief of what I just had read. Why should that have been the ending? Why do authors do this? The ending is really similar to a tragedy (in my opinion, the ending makes this a tragedy) and I hate it (but also love at the same time because it makes me feel this way)

Yeah, this book really is one of my new favorites. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cannibalism, Blood, Physical abuse, Body horror, Death, Drug abuse, Gore, Sexual violence, Torture, Murder, and Violence

jctur2's review

dark funny tense medium-paced

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

4.0

If a Disney princess was the main character in American Psycho.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Grief, Violence, Eating disorder, Stalking, Kidnapping, Blood, Body horror, Death, Excrement, Cannibalism, Drug use, Murder, Gore, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, Terminal illness, and Torture

behindherpages's review against another edition

dark 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Murder, Sexual assault, Torture, Body horror, Drug use, Violence, Gore, Alcohol, and Cannibalism

Moderate: Gaslighting

squids_can_read's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

5.0

Please look up content/trigger warnings.

Maeve Fly works as a princess at a theme park. She loves her life as it is but when her grandmother gets sick and her best friend gets a big break in her acting career. Now Maeve Fly's life is crumbling around her. 

How can a book this disturbing make me want to sob like a little baby? I think that a very specific set of people will really enjoy this book and I think that most people will not. The main character is not a good person, she does things and says things that are fundamentally wrong. But I honestly really enjoyed that. It's gross and it's disgusting but it discusses a lot about codependent relationships, finding your true self, and having someone know you truly. Overall, I thought that the characters were really interesting and the plot was super intriguing. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug use, Blood, Body horror, Cannibalism, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Alcoholism, Excrement, Gore, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Stalking, Torture, and Violence