Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

10 reviews

orizenda's review against another edition

dark sad medium-paced

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

4.0

I feel like complicated is a good word to describe this book. Not that it’s difficult to understand, there’s just a lot to think about. The characters are so complex imo and i really liked that. near the end my stomach was actually churning, which I was not anticipating. I love M.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Body horror, Cannibalism, Grief, Physical abuse, Blood, and Child death

Moderate: Sexual content, Animal death, and Drug use

thebearnest's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cannibalism, Murder, Death, Violence, Child death, and Chronic illness

Moderate: Gore, Sexual content, and Physical abuse

danimacuk's review against another edition

challenging emotional 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Medical content, Sexual content, and Violence

Minor: Alcohol, Death of parent, Body shaming, and Confinement

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

mitobites's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad slow-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

Graphic: Cannibalism, Chronic illness, Death, Child death, Grief, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Gore, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Animal cruelty, Violence, and Body horror

Minor: Child abuse, Medical content, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Alcohol, Confinement, and Physical abuse

kumquats87's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad fast-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

Graphic: Physical abuse, Grief, Gore, Blood, Body horror, and Death

Moderate: Medical trauma

Minor: Medical content

eleonoram's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

“She loves and hates this lung, a mystery to her, a tiny lung that carried her son way past his expected life span. She wants to thank it, and also spit on it for not having carried him further.”

I’m leaving this review at a 4-ish for now but this is very hard for me to rate. I want to say I loved it and I enjoyed it but I don’t know if those are the right words. This is a disturbing and graphic story of a monster turned boy (?), grown from a mother’s grief. Grief is the overwhelming theme here, and it is palpable. Normally I rate based on my enjoyment of the book, the writing, the characters, and the plot, but my overall enjoyment of reading the book usually stands tallest. I can’t say that I enjoyed this book, but it is definitely a story that will stick with me. And as disturbing as some of the characters were they were also realistic somehow, in all the surrealism. I felt for Monstrilio towards the end, he’s really just another victim of grief as well, whilst also its result in a way. I wonder if he became what he is because of how others viewed him? As unrealistic as this story is it somehow feels possible that immense grief could do what it did in this book, and that is a feat of Sámano Córdova. It’s definitely the story that’s made me reflect the most lately, so I’m putting a 4-ish for now, but I may bump it as I sit on this for a bit.

Bottom line: read it.

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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Gore, Violence, Animal death, Death, Child death, Blood, Cannibalism, Grief, and Physical abuse

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: Death, Animal death, Child death, and Grief

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

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

noshinbean's review against another edition

dark 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, Child death, Animal cruelty, Confinement, Gore, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Animal death, and Blood

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