Reviews tagging 'Cursing'

Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

4 reviews

emilywemily6'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

4.75

Oooo this was good. My horror at Magos’ attempt to grow a piece of her dead son’s lung cannot be matched. The beginning of this book was so unhinged and I was yelling at the cast to get rid of Monstrilio before he ate them all. And yet I grew to love that little monster and found him cute with his arm tail. And I was horrified at myself for thinking he was cute!! This novel explores what it means to be human and what it means to be a monster and made me want to reread Frankenstein. I really felt for M and how he tried so hard to fit in and appear less monstrous. I appreciated that this bunch of misfit/unhinged family members tried to protect M even after some of the things he did. There were strong themes about trying to change others/trying to alter what we created when it doesn’t suit us (again, it makes me want to reread Frankenstein!). The horror of this story was really in M’s origin and the story became more meaningful towards the end. Honestly, I was hoping for more horror and for there to be a tipping point at the end, but as another reviewer wrote there was an emotionlessness to the gore/sex that made it less horror-ish than it could have been. I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Sexual content, Physical abuse, Child death, Medical content, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Gaslighting, Animal cruelty, Toxic relationship, Body horror, Death, Grief, Sexual violence, Animal death, Blood, Drug use, Gore, and Chronic illness

Moderate: Bullying and Alcohol

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

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

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

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, Blood, Child death, Body horror, Grief, Gore, and Death

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

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

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