Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

The Z Word by Lindsay King-Miller

37 reviews

vixenreader's review

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense fast-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

4.5

Although I’m still mad at Leah, and the ending is open-ended, this book is filled with realistic, loveable characters, great gore, great action, and a message of fighting for your community. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Murder, Lesbophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Body shaming, Bullying, Fatphobia, Racial slurs, Racism, Toxic relationship, Mass/school shootings, Car accident, War, and Classism

Minor: Misogyny, Sexism, and Abortion

Be aware that this book deals with estranged relationships between ex-partners, plots to destroy community, attacks targets at the LGBTQ+ community, broken condoms, refusing medical services due to religious beliefs, corporate & political corruption, fear of unwanted pregnancy, selling out, explosions caused by fireworks, and zombies.

poisoned_icecream's review

challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Infidelity, Misogyny, Sexism, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Grief, Religious bigotry, Car accident, Lesbophobia, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Toxic relationship

Minor: Suicide attempt

fuzzball's review

challenging dark emotional fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Infidelity, Racism, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Body shaming, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Car accident, and Lesbophobia

Minor: Fatphobia, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Police brutality, Grief, Abortion, Suicide attempt, and Lesbophobia

thepermageek's review

adventurous dark funny fast-paced

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

5.0

A wild romp of a book! While there is indeed one main protagonist, it is mostly structured like an ensemble cast. Like a literary version of Shaun of the Dead only much, much gayer! I really liked the overall theme of capitalist/corporate-infused Gay Pride vs. actual, I've-got-your-back queer/trans community! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Gore, Violence, Blood, and Vomit

Moderate: Homophobia

Minor: Suicide attempt

sommermeyer27's review

adventurous challenging dark tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Sexual content, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Murder, Lesbophobia, and Alcohol

Moderate: Body horror, Drug use, Police brutality, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Self harm and Suicide

tiffditto's review

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-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: Gore, Hate crime, Sexual content, Violence, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Gun violence, Homophobia, Transphobia, Religious bigotry, and Fire/Fire injury

lostgwennel's review

adventurous dark funny sad fast-paced

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

3.75

This was really fun! Lots of books “read like movies” and it’s not always a good thing, but this one does such a great job with the campy horror movie imagery, the foreshadowing, following different characters for a scene or two to show their perspective etc. However Wendy was a really unpleasant narrator and frustrated me. It was obviously intentional, but she didn’t change a whole lot by the end, so the story as a whole (and her character arc) doesn’t feel resolved.

The narration over-explains things sometimes, like what transphobia is or why the police are bad, which can be a little annoying because it feels like it doesn’t trust the reader to know these things or be able to infer them from the text.

I saw the Seabrook twist coming a mile off, but I didn’t expect Leah’s involvement, so that was a fun surprise!

My favourite parts of the book were butch Beau, token nonbinary Sunshine, and the setting of San Lazaro (reading this in November in SW England, every time I read a description of the sun I felt like vitamin D was radiating off the pages)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Police brutality, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Homophobia, Racism, and Sexual assault

Minor: Suicide attempt

dogoodwithbooks's review

dark tense fast-paced

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

4.5

Closed Door Mods: Chapter 1 (some parts), Chapter 12 

For a horror novel, The Z Word is a kind of fun book to read. Adopting the various tropes associated with zombie apocalypses media and infusing her own spins on those tropes, King-Miller writes a darkly funny horror novel about a misfit group trying to save Pride from an sudden outburst of zombies. It’s very easy to picture the different elements of this book, from the various Pride festivities to glimpses into the victims of the zombie outbreak, and I liked how King-Miller used her writing to achieve that goal. There are quite a bit of gore/jump scare moments, but those depictions aren’t excessively graphic (only to the point of what’s needed for this type of story). Fans of Andrew Joseph White will appreciate the thematic elements of LGBTQ+ people fighting back against absolutely horrible circumstances as well as the portrayals of complex and messy queer characters in The Z Word. If you’re looking for a horror novel featuring Sapphic MCs, written with a dark sense of humor, and/or has a found family trope, you should keep your eye out for this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Homophobia, Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Police brutality, Grief, and Lesbophobia

Minor: Body shaming, Religious bigotry, and Car accident

steph_weigle's review

adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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: Body shaming, Cursing, Death, Fatphobia, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Mental illness, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Cannibalism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Lesbophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

smothermewithscifi's review

dark emotional funny tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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: Body horror, Cursing, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Infidelity, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Racial slurs