Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

25 reviews

sonygaystation's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense 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? It's complicated

1.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Sexual content, Blood, Body horror, Infidelity, Medical trauma, Sexual violence, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Rape, Violence, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Cursing, Alcohol, and Medical content

Moderate: Homophobia, Grief, Gun violence, Domestic abuse, Racial slurs, Vomit, Gore, Xenophobia, War, Body shaming, Colonisation, Emotional abuse, Death, and Confinement

Minor: Abortion, Suicidal thoughts, Animal death, and Child death

sup3r_xn0va_maya's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

2.0

💬: “Don’t be afraid,” he whispered into my hair. “There’s the two of us now.” I felt warm, soothed, and safe for the first time in many days."

Gabaldon, Diana. Outlander: A Novel (Outlander, Book 1) (p. 212). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

📖Genres: romance, romantasy, adult, adventure, historical romance, historical, fantasy

📚Page Count: 850

🎧Audiobook Length: 32h 38min

👩🏾‍🏫My Rating: ⭐️⭐️ - 2/5
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TW -

ableism, animal death, blood, body horror, cursing, death, death of parent, emotional abuse, gore, grief, injury/injury detail, misogyny, murder, physical abuse, pregnancy, rape, sexism, sexual assault, sexual harassment, sexual content, sexual violence, torture, violence, vomit, war

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon is an 800+ page historical romance that has action, spice, time travel, and adventure. Claire is a nurse from 1945 and she's thrusted back in time a few hundred years, where she has to survive until she figures out how to get home. It's here that she meets Jamie, a Scott who wants to show her a love so true. At least she won't have to try and survive alone, with him by her side. I didn't love this story, I barely liked it. Between the weird and slow pacing and the threat of rape being constantly thrown around, by the time the book was over I was exhausted and annoyed from the read.

I didn't like the book's pacing. The book started off really slow, I'd say it took about 2 to 3 hours of listening to the audiobook for the story to actually start moving forward. Once the story started to move, things got interesting and I became invested. Then, I'd say 200 pages into the action, things slowed down to a crawl and I stopped caring about the story. After about 150 pages of the slow crawl, things picked up again. Do you see where I'm going with this? This strange pacing continued throughout the entire novel.

(Trigger Warning  - rape, sexual assault)
The threat of rape was constant from the moment the main character went back in time. I understand that your female main character went back in time, that doesn't mean you have to have every other man she encounters try to physically & sexually attack her. I honestly should have counted the amount of times Claire was threated with physical or sexual harm by a man, there are a few times where she actually IS attacked. Claire apparently isn't the only one who's in danger of being sexually assaulted.

At the tail end of the book Jamie gets arrested and he incidentally ran into Randall, well Randall is an evil man so he wanted to take revenge on Jamie and he does that by mutilating, torturing, and raping Jamie for an uncertain amount of days.

(Trigger Warning  - rape, sexual assault, drugging)
Unfortunately, it gets worse. Now,

by the time Jamie is rescued from Randall at the end of the book, he has PTSD, he's so sick that he might die, and he doesn't want to look at his wife because he feels ashamed and disgusted with himself because of the sexual assault. How do I know this? Because he tells Claire and there's a dialogue about the assault and Jamie tells Claire exactly what was said and done to him. For some odd reason the author decided to make Claire drug Jamie with opium, so he hallucinates, and then she pretends to be his assaulter (Randall) and she says the things he said and then she does the things he physically did to elicit a response out of Jamie. Well, it does get a reaction, Jamie attacks Claire and they go tumbling to the ground (while Claire is getting beat on by Jamie). Somehow, while they're tumbling on the group Claire is able to insert Jamie into her, and now they're having intercourse. Claire "cured him" and helped him claim his "manhood".

OMG. How ridiculous, gross, and unnecessary.

(Trigger Warning - physical abuse, domestic abuse)
The spice fluctuated. At first I was into it but then there was this strange scene where

Jamie physically held down and beat Claire because he wanted to prove to his band of merry men that he was punishing her for her actions. I just didn't understand this scene, it made me sick to my stomach and it made me like Jamie a lot less than I previously did. After that, I wasn't interested in any spice between Jamie and Claire.

I'm giving it one and a half chilies 🌶️.5 out of five chilies

This book also ends in the

pregnancy trope

, and if you know me then you know I hate that trope very much. So, the ending was just disappointing for many reason. I really tried to trust recommendations and then trust the process with this one and that failed me. There were only a few times during the 32 hour audiobook that I enjoyed the reading experience. I just didn't like this book and I won't be continuing with the series.
⭐️⭐️ - 2/5

I listened to this for free on the library app, hoopladigital.com

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Ableism, Body horror, Drug use, Murder, Gun violence, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Grief, Emotional abuse, Animal death, Death of parent, Blood, Infertility, Rape, Sexual content, Domestic abuse, Gore, Violence, Vomit, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Torture, and War

commonwolf's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Sexual violence, Blood, Body horror, Sexual assault, Torture, Murder, Violence, Emotional abuse, Gore, and Physical abuse

solypoly's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Sexism, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Misogyny, and Sexual content

Moderate: Colonisation, Infertility, Alcohol, Blood, Death, Infidelity, War, Body horror, Physical abuse, and Religious bigotry

travellingbibliomaniac's review

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape

Moderate: Sexual assault, Body horror, Torture, Rape, and Violence

Minor: Infertility, Infidelity, Physical abuse, and Toxic relationship

kmac14's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Death, Misogyny, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Domestic abuse, Sexual content, Torture, Sexual harassment, Pregnancy, Sexism, Sexual assault, Blood, Body horror, Violence, Rape, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Infertility, Alcohol, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Infidelity, and Medical content

Minor: Child abuse, Death of parent, Pedophilia, Abortion, Chronic illness, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, War, Gun violence, Vomit, Cursing, and Confinement

breegoux's review

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Outlander is an interesting read and I'm not quite sure how to classify it. Historical romance isn't quite right as it spends a good deal of its time setting up a deeper political plotline, but historical fiction doesn't fit either because (at least to me) it ventures a little too far into the drama aspects of someone is always captured/in trouble/under threat to quite fit there. So probably closer to dramatic historical romance? And there is something to be said for "well what does the genre really matter?" which is fair, but I found myself constantly bouncing around in the narrative confused as to what exactly the book was trying to do or where we were going - it just wasn't cohesive to me. Some plotlines had me hooked and unable to put the book down and others had me thinking that Gabaldon had really lost the plot somewhere. All that being said, it's easy to see why Outlander is such a hit and a bestseller - it's hard to put down. It keeps you on the edge of each page wondering what's going to happen next, the characters are loveable if not rough around the edges, and the landscape of 1744 Scotland is magical. Where it failed for me is the repetitive "oh no they're captured again" narrative and over the top drama that seeped into a lot of the subplots

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Death, Murder, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Torture, War, Blood, Violence, and Vomit

Moderate: Pregnancy, Domestic abuse, Alcohol, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, and Body horror

soph22's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Body horror, Death, Domestic abuse, Medical content, Medical trauma, Sexism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Confinement, Cursing, Grief, Infertility, Abandonment, Alcohol, Gore, Sexual violence, Ableism, Blood, Forced institutionalization, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Murder, Rape, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, and Vomit

amy_sl's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny medium-paced

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

2.75

The book begins relatively "innocently", with characters and themes suitable and likeable for the time period that Claire is transported into. However, trigger warnings for the last part of the book

descriptions of rape, body horror, wishing for death, torture etc. overall just unpleasant and disgusting. If you are sensitive to any of these things I wouldn't really recommend it. Though reoccurring themes throughout the whole book, the final third of the book takes it all a step further and, honestly, it's all just unnecessary as well.

I Had a pretty enjoyable read up until this point, but this last part definitely knocked off a few stars. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Torture, Sexism, Body horror, Rape, Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, and Violence

Moderate: Pedophilia and Infertility

Minor: Physical abuse, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, and Homophobia

willow_belle's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Violence, Blood, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Rape, Religious bigotry, Torture, Gun violence, Hate crime, Murder, Sexism, Toxic friendship, War, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Grief, Homophobia, Infertility, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual content, and Sexual violence

It's bloody good!