Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

23 reviews

beanaroni's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective 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

This may be coming from a part of my mind still processing Lou Sullivan's We Both Laughed in Pleasure, but Monstrilio feels so remarkably transmasc (and autistic!) to me. I'm utterly fascinated by Sámano Córdova's mind and how, whether he intended to, he has so succinctly managed to capture the insatiability that comes when you've tasted the truth of your being and the ache of diminishing yourself for those you love.

They are happy to believe I forgot how they maimed me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Sexual content, Violence, Medical content, Grief, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Drug use

michaelion's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I've never read a book where the characters are gay and it's not central to the plot and have that book be anything less than 4.5 stars. Gay for no reason! Gay people being people who also happen to be gay!

I'm clawing at reasons not to give this 5 stars. The best books leave me speechless in my reviews, and this is one of them despite the fact I do have a lil sum sum to say. There's something about it that left me hovering just under 5 stars. M's section alone is worth 5 stars for sure, but for the others I was like oh this book is a 4.25, 4.5, and then M blew it out the park. I love books that leave me with an empty lingering feeling in the pit of my stomach. What an excellent writer. Such beautiful descriptions. I left this book hungry and enjoyed my meal. As a person with an unhealthy, complicated relationship with food, know that's quite a task. And then the story? W O W . I love when families ❤️ There's truly layers to this. And it was so hard renting this from my li rary it doesn't seem to stay on the shelves, FOR GOOD REASON !!! I WILL be buying it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Death of parent, Murder, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Confinement, Drug use, Medical trauma, and Abandonment

onlyincursive's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad 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

4.0

Somehow devastated me and gave me hope at the same time. An interesting look at the ways people handle grief and the challenges of living in a world where you’ll never fit in.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Gore, Terminal illness, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Cannibalism, Murder, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Drug use, Eating disorder, Violence, and Medical trauma

Minor: Cursing, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, and Excrement

ambert's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

The difficulty in letting go of grief, and the disastrous consequences caused by holding on. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Death, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Blood, Grief, Cannibalism, and Murder

Moderate: Child death, Drug use, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol

Minor: Death of parent

brinnavirginia's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-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? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Grief, and Cannibalism

Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, and Murder

Minor: Drug use

chasingpages1's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Blood, and Grief

Moderate: Chronic illness, Confinement, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Medical content, Murder, Gaslighting, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Cursing, Drug use, Torture, Cannibalism, Death of parent, and Alcohol

r_o_s_e's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, and Grief

Moderate: Ableism, Blood, Medical content, Murder, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Chronic illness, Drug use, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Excrement, Vomit, Death of parent, and Alcohol

erks's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Gore, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Medical content, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Drug use

monstersinspace's review against another edition

dark emotional tense slow-paced

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

2.5

Maybe this book just wasn't for me. Like 95% of the time I had no idea what was going on. I feel like it was all over the place and the end kinda just meandered around and with no discernable plot. 

Spoiler: I thought it would have been about grief but then it went to this weird sex cannibalism route that I still don't understand. The first part was about grief, but after they cut of M's stump there was a whole lot of nothing, a time skip of like 7 years, and then M being even more of a horrible monster creature thing and everyone making excuses for him. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Drug use, Sexual content, Blood, Grief, Cannibalism, and Murder

smuds2's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

For a first novel, it is quite good - I'd happily read any another novels written by Córdova.

The pacing is quite good - I think it pauses where it needs to pause and speeds where it needs to speed. I think I would have liked it to sit a bit more with Joseph - it felt like his chapter was stuck mostly with narrative and rapid character development to a climax.

There were some unnecessary sexual explicit scenes for my taste (I'm not quite sure the fact that they were sexually explicit added anything valuable to the importance of the scenes). I also think that at times, the first three chapters lapsed into kind of a generic voice.

I think that, thematically, this is a great work of weird-fiction? Magical realism? depicting the grieving process. Lucia, not really understanding monstrilio, but begrudgingly living with it (I'm thinking especially post attack). Lena just being supportive to both her friend(s) and the manifestation of their grief. Magos arc of basically saying "I can fix it", while it 'dragged' on her life (although, not for the worse - I'm thinking of her turning down the Valencia gig to stay with family could easily be interpreted as a reprioritization directly as a result of the strengthened bonds formed during grief).

I don't think Josephs arc is nearly as clean - and maybe that's the point?

And I'm not quite sure how to square away uncle luke in this setting - is he the enabler? Is that good? The safe place to act your worse during grief?

I also think that a major shortcoming of the book was not sitting with lucia's death and then just kind of ignoring jackie. is that because they were not supportive? And as a result faded out of their life? I feel like there could have been thematic commentary for how to grief for a "normal" death.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, and Alcohol