Reviews tagging 'Vomit'

Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

13 reviews

winter_b's review against another edition

dark emotional funny 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

3.5

A funny, dark and slighlty surreal book. I enjoyed it and was compelled to keep reading.

I was reading this as an ebook and had a lot of trouble with the formatting. The transcriptions were formatted in a way where part of it disappeared off the "page". I got frustrated trying to fix it so I put it aside for a while

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Drug use, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Suicide attempt, and Alcohol

Moderate: Drug abuse, Gun violence, Vomit, and Stalking

There are many explicit descriptions of insects and arachnids specifically:

maggots, bees, spiders

they are a motif throughout the book.

onthelam's review against another edition

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

2.0

I thought the concept was intriguing but i was just bored for the first 30-40% of the book. It started picking up in the middle with a lot of interesting dynamics but there was no pay off. I read it the whole time waiting to see how it would resolve but there was no resolution and it just ended randomly.  The whole book was just saying a lot without saying anything. We would start delving deeper into some interesting characters psychology and emotionally complex situations but it would just go around in circles, like we just stating why her best friend had be acting strange the whole book in the last few pages and wrapping it up haphazardly immediately . It seemed like one of those books that just relies on being weird to make the reader stay and either try to understand or just be fascinated by the train wreck these characters are.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Suicide, Blood, Vomit, Grief, and Abandonment

Minor: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Biphobia, Bullying, Drug abuse, Drug use, Self harm, Vomit, Medical content, Stalking, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

vaykay's review against another edition

adventurous lighthearted fast-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

3.0

Wonderful, refreshing writing style and tone. Good characterization although the main characters' idiosyncrasies teetered on overly quirky and unique. Loved the premise of this ethical dilemma, but it wasn't really much of a dilemma for Greta. Greta's constant immaturity and satirical or ironic ramblings got annoying quickly, especially during sex scenes. Too many weird race comments or "jokes" that didn't feel right coming from Beagin; felt less like an attempt at painting Greta as racially insensitive (or simply racist) and more so like an attempt to turn Greta into an ironic edge-lord 15 year old boy trapped in a 45 year old queer woman's body. So weird. Wouldn't classify as a romance OR a love story, even though that is how it is branded on the back of the book. I knew better going in, but I wanted to clarify that it is by no means a love story.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Blood, Dementia, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Biphobia

Minor: Ableism, Animal death, Cancer, Drug abuse, Miscarriage, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Slavery, Terminal illness, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Abortion, Murder, Pregnancy, and Sexual harassment

lilgriff's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny medium-paced

• 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Stalking, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Mental illness, Rape, and Grief

Minor: Cancer, Gore, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Vomit, and Pregnancy

cigarete_smoke's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny fast-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Stalking

Moderate: Drug abuse, Gun violence, and Self harm

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Eating disorder, and Vomit

silver_lining_in_a_book's review against another edition

dark funny slow-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

 

Greta considered her own behaviour around red flags. Her habit was not to ignore them so much as to ingest them, a somewhat laborious mental production that involved placing them in a stockpot with butter, herbs, and mirepoix; cooking over low heat without browning; adding red meat, additional red flags, a jug of red wine; and voilà, four hours at a lazy simmer later, an extremely rich red-flag stew that she forked into her mouth every day like a fucking moron, sometimes for years on end.

Oh no... I hate to do this but I should have seen the signs when in the first few pages we were making horribly racist comments (particularly about Japanese and Chinese people), making fun of anorexics (trigger warnings would have been appreciated) and strangely glamorising suicide.

I had such high expectations for this book! It had so much potential when it came to humorously discussing some very morbid and taboo topics but instead, it turned into a very uncomfortable semi-erotic, semi-thriller novel. It failed at the thrill, it failed at the romance, it failed at the eroticism and it did not even begin the discussion of important topics like relationships, infidelity, suicide, depression, therapy and trauma.

I am not sure I have ever given a book 1 star, but there is a first time for everything and I believe it is well deserved in this case. The 1 star is being awarded solely to the beautiful US cover and its designer; it's the only thing Big Swiss has going for it. I am so incredibly thankful I decided to check this out of the library because I would have probably torn the sex-scene pages out if it were my own copy... they were so unpleasant to read. Not to mention that I am generally fine with erotic scenes! I will never be able to get the image of a slightly moist origami rose between a woman's peach-fuzz-covered legs out of my head. Thank you, Jen Beagin, for making me hate both origami and peaches now (though the latter was ruined by Call Me By Your Name a while ago).

Anyway, I somewhat regret pushing through this sorry excuse for literature, but at least I can confidently say that it sucked and I truly truly TRULY do not understand the hype here... how many trees have been sacrificed for this exactly? I would like to petition for their restoration; they didn't deserve this. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

charlereads's review against another edition

dark funny reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

Witty and clever. Dark. Little plot.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Gore, Infidelity, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

mothmaul's review against another edition

dark funny tense 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Drug use, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Blood, and Death of parent

Moderate: Addiction, Rape, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, Grief, and Abandonment

Minor: Eating disorder, Self harm, Sexism, Vomit, Stalking, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

billie_churchill's review against another edition

funny reflective 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Stalking, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Miscarriage, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicide, Vomit, Kidnapping, Grief, Suicide attempt, and Alcohol

alicialicia's review against another edition

dark emotional funny tense medium-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

3.5

Weird & darkly humorous. Found myself entranced but also struggled to feel as though some of the emotional dynamics taking place between characters were earned.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Stalking, and Death of parent

Moderate: Addiction, Infidelity, Mental illness, Blood, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Cancer, Rape, and Vomit