Reviews tagging 'Vomit'

Last Days by Adam L.G. Nevill

2 reviews

jet_nebula's review

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dark lighthearted tense medium-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

4.5

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madarauchiha's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad slow-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? N/A

4.75

  ❤️ 🧡 💛 💚 💙 💜  my about / byf / CW info carrd: uchiha-madara 💜 💙 💚 💛 🧡 ❤️

 
If you like enjoy otherworlds, doppelgangers, physical hauntings, architecture horror, supernatural, demonic entities, cults, occult horror, cult horror, I think you'll like this book. That's what I found really appealing, but what drew me in was the unusual horror plot. It reminded me a little of Blair Witch, Rules for Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall, Experimental Film by Gemma Files and Night Film by Marisha Pessl. Not exact duplicates, just in the same odd genre of mockumentary / personal investigation into something more horrific and fucked up than one thought it would be. 

The descriptions of scary stuff is fantastic. It's not cheesy to me, over the top, or confusingly sparse. it could almost be ordinary if it weren't for a well built up foundation for why its horrifying. It's really interesting, slow paced, knows how to build a set up from the very start. It looks like the ordinary start to a standard horror novel and it goes batshit from there. the one off supporting characters are interesting too. 

It's entirely unrelated and not even in the same genre perhaps? But this book describes Lost Carcosa very well in my eyes. Just a weird, bizarre, forbidden place out there some where full of shit that will fuck you up because it wants to. It wants to hurt. 

I thought the plot was great. It did drag in some parts and feel a bit repetitious. I was fine with that as it kept consistent to the internal clock of day after day, one whole week of completing its purpose. It also drove home how constantly harried the MC was by the ordeal and what that entailed. What is sometimes is irritating is the conversation is formatted sparsely in about a page or two of paragraph. I half wish they were broken up with a bit of physical action or other wise. like if a conversation is upsetting and stressful, have someone pause yo scoff or get up to pace. a small detraction, personally. 

I think someone complained a lil about the
slideshow portion of the plot, wherein Max explained everything that the cult had done and what Katherine was doing to the survivors.
I thought that was hilarious and great. I'd love a
slideshow explaining all the horrible shit that was happening to me.
It felt like a decent reprieve from the constant stalking that was occurring at that point. It's kinda like the alternating real life and otherworld levels in the first Silent Hill game. You need to breathe a bit after a lot of tension and horror. Otherwise it gets stale. I can't say that finger mouse [the character] was irritating or a stereotype. I mean yeah ok, it was, but I know tech nerds like that in real life. It's not necessarily a bad thing to see that in a book. I don't think it was a shitty portrayal. I think it was great in building and maintaining tension. 

The ending? 
I'm fine with that. Listen I got my conclusion to 99 percent of the mystery brought up over the entre book. Do I really need to know about the
mysterious europeans who were somehow linked to the first time the Cult tried to summon angel-demons monster things?
No, that's not relevant to the immediate mystery. Largely, whether
the tape was released or not is not an issue. I automatically assumed the mysterious rich europeans already know about finger mouse via Max and had intervened. No I have no basis for this theory, only that they spent a lot of time keeping the triptych painting a secret inside a very expensive, unique building. Of course they would know what Max is up to with hiring the MC.
The Yes or No answer doesn't matter in the long run. 


Transphobia / transmisogyny / misgendering  
[Note for this conversation, I am transmisogyny exempt trans [nonbinary] person of color. This spoils the entire plot and arc for a character.] 
I feel drained from reading the finale of the book for the last hour. I feel like there's something to be said about how the child who'd be the next vessel is called an it. How the male cis chet is called effeminate and made that way by the 'parasite' that is Katherine. Who by the way was so traumatized by being trafficked that she had infertility issues, and felt so dehumanized that she no longer wanted to be a cis woman. Not sure if I can articulate that at this moment. How again Katherine is misgendered even in a cis mans body. And how she is going to transfer to another cis male body. Assuming the child is cis at all. Idk maybe this isn't the author being transphobic or something else could be deeper read into this. There bare bones of the story is that a survivor of sexual abuse and sex trafficking started a cult to sexually abuse others and, because supernatural  forces enabled her to do this, wanted to transfer her consciousness into that of a cis male child who was a product of rape she caused. Whether you want to discard the horror aspect of supernatural entities assisting her, including the transfer if her consciousnesses, is up to you. Another reading is that she brainwashed a child into thinking they had been an adult cis woman in a not so past life. Maybe this is a stretch and its not actually transphobic. Horror involving changlings, dopplegangers, bodysnatchers, and the like have an old place in the horror genre. And not always in a transphobic or transmisogynistic way. Changelings in Irish folklore, Jesus christ in the bible came back changed, Black Eyed Kids creepypasta aren't transphobic doppelgangers either. The trope of 'comes back wrong' isn't inherently transphobic or transmisogynistic. I daresay this is a questionable use of the theme considering the author misgenders Katherine-as-Chet by using she/her and not the pre established he/him mentioned earlier in the book. He also calls a male child an it, dehumanizing him from the start. I suppose this is largely excusable considering this is not an actual transman, but an adult woman abusing a child in a supernatural and fictional manner. But it's this trope used in horror that I object to. I don't think there's more to say about it really.
 

Biphobia
caitsidhe's review also brought up two important things. The misogyny of body horror specifically being 'effeminate' and slender, and the villain of the story being a 'predatory bisexual'. 


The direct quote from the book is this.

 
"But the next image did not inflict another concussion of shock. In fact, his relief was such that a sliver of his grim humour emerged. ‘Think you got the wrong slide in there, Max.’ Something from your porn collection. In better times he would even have laughed at the idea. It was a studio shot of Chet Regal. The former Hollywood swimwear model, turned A-List actor, badboy, owner of Final Chapter Productions, and the latest occupier of Katherine’s former San Diego mansion. But Max looked triumphant, if not ferrety. ‘Chet Regal. Long gone from the silver screen, at least in Tinsel Town terms. For at least six years and counting. But only following two divorces you may have read about, a string of high-profile legal actions for possession of narcotics, driving under the influence, and assault. Mostly against members of the press, or his girlfriends. Chet Regal is a lifelong violent hater of beautiful women and a predatory bisexual with sadistic tastes. It is now believed he is swiftly succumbing to the latter stages of AIDS and Hepatitis B.’ ‘I know who he is, Max.’ ‘While a recluse, as you also know, he has been holed up in here.’"
 

The context is
during the slideshow where Max explains everything to the MC, he gets to the character Chet Regal. Regal is the 'clean' child survivor of the latest inception of the suicide Cult that Max was involved in. Max explains Regal is Katherine, who was transferred into the child's body decades ago. Max describes Regal as the above quoted text. Now Max has very strong negative feelings about Katherine considering she orchestrated vast amounts of torture, rape, and abuse. He has every right to be verbally nasty towards her. But  Max 
  is a fictional character. He cannot choose these biphobic words, the author did. Just like the author chose to portray bisexuality as 
  sadistic and promiscuous to the point of contracting AIDs and Hepatitus. 
This is wrong of the author to do so. You can make a villain evil without making and enforcing biphobic stereotypes. I say this as a lesbian, to be clear, that this is not ok to show my bisexual siblings like this. 
Note. When I say 'clean' I mean physically free of dirt, mess, sweat, etc. There is a deeper meaning in the context but I'm using that word to single out which individual I'm referring to.

Miscellany 
▪ We were hijacked by a psychopath who would not have flinched at becoming a Hitler or a Stalin if the opportunity presented itself to her. We are here, my friends, to correct a very grave mistake I made in 1967.’ 

I don't think I like or appreciate comparing a fictional cult leader to two irl dictators who committed irl war crimes, specifically against Jewish people. Also psychopath is a shitty word to use here.

▪ Kyle drifted over to his bed. He tried to move the cat, but its eyes went black as olives and the claws on one paw were shown. ‘Fuck’s sake.’ He fell asleep curled around the cat, one hand under his head. ( 

best part of the book 😻 


Content warnings 
Minor Vietnam war, ableism towards people who use drugs, alcohol use, amputation, animal death, anti Rromani g slur, blood, body horror, charles manson, child death, cultural appropriation in the misuse of the title guru, death, drug overdose, drugs smoking tobacco, emotional abuse, gun violence, guns, homophobic derogatory language (fruit), homophobic f slur, human trafficking, injuries, jim jones, mass murder, michael Jackson, physical abuse, poisoning, police, pregnancy, prison, racial slurs, racism, rape, scientology, slut shaming, starvation, suicide ideation, suicide threats, vomit, whorephobic language, woody allen 


Medium animal death, blood, cannibalism, child abuse, concentration camps, fatphobia, gore, gun violence, hitler mention, homophobia, kidnapping, live burial, major paranoia, male rape, dogs, nazism, pregnancy, prison abuse, rape, scientology, sexual abuse, stalinism, stalking?, torture, trafficking, violence 


Major alcohol use, alcoholism, bone fractures, cannibalism, charles manson cult murder described, child abuse, child death, cult abuse, cults, death, described body image of unhealthily underweight persons which may be triggering to those with disordered eating issue, drugs smoking tobacco, emotional abuse, fertility abuse, fire injury, gore, grief, jim jones massacre described, medical content, murder, police, psychosis?, religious abuse, sexual abuse, suicide, torture, unreality?, unsanitary 


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