Reviews with content warning for Animal cruelty - Big Swiss

Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

153 reviews

silver_lining_in_a_book's review against another edition

dark funny 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? Yes

1.0

Greta considered her own behaviour around red flags. Her habit was not to ignore them so much as to ingest them, a somewhat laborious mental production that involved placing them in a stockpot with butter, herbs, and mirepoix; cooking over low heat without browning; adding red meat, additional red flags, a jug of red wine; and voilà, four hours at a lazy simmer later, an extremely rich red-flag stew that she forked into her mouth every day like a fucking moron, sometimes for years on end.

Oh no... I hate to do this but I should have seen the signs when in the first few pages we were making horribly racist comments (particularly about Japanese and Chinese people), making fun of anorexics (trigger warnings would have been appreciated) and strangely glamorising suicide.

I had such high expectations for this book! It had so much potential when it came to humorously discussing some very morbid and taboo topics but instead, it turned into a very uncomfortable semi-erotic, semi-thriller novel. It failed at the thrill, it failed at the romance, it failed at the eroticism and it did not even begin the discussion of important topics like relationships, infidelity, suicide, depression, therapy and trauma.

I am not sure I have ever given a book 1 star, but there is a first time for everything and I believe it is well deserved in this case. The 1 star is being awarded solely to the beautiful US cover and its designer; it's the only thing Big Swiss has going for it. I am so incredibly thankful I decided to check this out of the library because I would have probably torn the sex-scene pages out if it were my own copy... they were so unpleasant to read. Not to mention that I am generally fine with erotic scenes! I will never be able to get the image of a slightly moist origami rose between a woman's peach-fuzz-covered legs out of my head. Thank you, Jen Beagin, for making me hate both origami and peaches now (though the latter was ruined by Call Me By Your Name a while ago).

Anyway, I somewhat regret pushing through this sorry excuse for literature, but at least I can confidently say that it sucked and I truly truly TRULY do not understand the hype here... how many trees have been sacrificed for this exactly? I would like to petition for their restoration; they didn't deserve this.

Content Warnings

kristin_o's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny fast-paced

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

4.0

Started strong, but lost some of the sparkle in the back half of the book. Pacing was uneven too. Terrible people coping with trauma, but funny. The dog

mauling scene

was a lot. I understand why it’s there for the narrative but damn.

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hannahgjenson's review against another edition

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emotional funny reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

aaaaaaAAAAAAHHHHHH this was SO good! So many juicy characters. I loved how the house was basically a character unto itself. So many hilarious and absurd details were built into that house like the bee hive and the bedroom fire pit that had to be tended every three hours or you'd get bombed by smoke. Beagin's writing style was so great- I really appreciated the way she zoomed in on minute details about a person or a place and extrapolated from there through Greta. I am now dying to become a sex therapy transcriptionist and move to Hudson and run around amongst all these crazy, wacky people causing drama. This book did have so many laughs and insane plot lines and devices, but was really centered around deep aching and trauma, and it all just sung together. I found so much of myself in these people living a life largely unlike my own, and that is such a good feeling in a book. What a great read!

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luxxltyd's review against another edition

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funny reflective relaxing medium-paced

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

3.5

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channamason's review against another edition

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emotional funny reflective sad fast-paced

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

4.0

This is a crazy book and crazy story.

i don’t think the ending really stuck. the climax (literally not the female orgasm lol) felt like it was too early for the remaining story of the book. the end got a bit boring, incorporating more characters. i was convinced keith wasn’t really there at all, more of Greta’s self sabotaging visions. but he was the one who stabbed Luke. there’s a very interesting relationship between humans an animals in this book and Greta acting on some animalistic tendencies.

will be thinking about this strange sometimes sexy always uncomfortable masterpiece for a long time.

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jazzydays's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

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

2.0

Disgusting

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kotletka_polina's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny reflective fast-paced

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

4.25

Major Saltburn vibes. Unlikeable characters, well-crafted satiric dialogues, dark themes, rich/poor kind of situation. Honestly I can compare these two pieces of art forever because to me they’re practically an adaptations of each other.
Overall, I enjoyed this book but I wish it was more disturbing in an unhinged way. The premise is cool but it’s not as big on the plot as I expected, the side events were more alarming.
Also, the ending didn’t feel like an actual ending to me because the pace didn’t changed throughout the book. I expected to feel closure of some sort but I only knew it was the end after I read “the end”.
Thought it’d be more eccentric but that’s fine too.

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plumdustsuns's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective tense medium-paced

0.25

😭😭 the plot was so all over the place and everything was so racist. I need to stop listening to online book recommendations/buying them because the book has queer content.
There was no linear string of concentration. Went from flavia’s trauma to random affair to Greta’s random descent into jealousy without showing that she had a tendency to be as much and that her mom was the same way. The blasé way of ‘I didn’t care that my mother offed herself’ in the last therapy session versus her using and being bogged down and sad by this trauma was not only conflicting but distasteful. Also Om randomly caring about her when she’s just his transcriptionist and his care/their friendship not even being handled before?? It’s not plausible/would have made for a better plot line and betrayal and made sense when he offered her sessions if they were friends or friendly. He said ‘Lmao’ when she said her house was cold and rain was coming in. And he suddenly cares?
And Keith was made out to be such a big deal and the stalker narrative and it barely did anything/added anything into the story? It wasn’t even resolved in the end properly?
Greta saying she had been SA’ed but it never coming up for her own intimacy issues? And it was just an offhand mention??
Also racist humour and just… so much wrong with this book, man. And how Flavia reacts to/keeps coming back to Greta doesn’t quite make sense. Also Greta gaslighting Flavia that adultery was worse than what she did? No???
Absolute fucking disappointment. Just a lazy and unfocused book.

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meganmustachebeard's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

2.75

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kir1072's review against another edition

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funny sad 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

3.75

As a "big Swiss" myself, I was intrigued. I loved how they ate Fondue, but Greta shouldn't have been able to have a Ricola-ad in her hallucination (she barely knows where Switzerland is). Apart from the mandatory references to Swiss food culture, I liked listening to the audiobook. It's a bit strange to call your dog "Ruderboot" when you are from a french speaking part (still strange in german parts), but It somehow fits Big Swiss.

The plot was nice, but not unexpected. I liked listening in to all these therapy sessions, and really grew fond of the character of Big Swiss. Just as her, I strongly dislike eyecontact with strangers.
All in all a nice book that I listened to over the last three days.

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