Reviews tagging 'Vomit'

The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey

15 reviews

talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

dark tense 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Death, Infidelity, Blood, Medical content, Domestic abuse, and Gore

Moderate: Sexism, Pregnancy, Violence, Misogyny, and Child abuse

Minor: Alcohol, Infertility, Abortion, Vomit, and Car accident

mkgfencer's review

dark emotional tense slow-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

4.0

Be ready for some long digressions about the protagonist’s deep and wide ranging trauma. 

I’ve never hated any book character as much as I hated the antagonist.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Sexual violence

Minor: Vomit and Trafficking

looseleafellie's review

dark fast-paced

5.0

This blend of science fiction and domestic thriller follows brilliant scientist Evelyn Caldwell, whose husband used her groundbreaking cloning research to make a more obedient version of her and left her for her clone. But now her husband is dead, and Evelyn and her clone must clean up the mess …

This was a quick and thought-provoking read! I love main characters who are kind of nasty people, and Evelyn is no exception. Really, there are no good people in this book, but I loved the exploration of how people’s bad behaviors can stem from the way people have treated them.

This is, on the surface, a story about misogyny. The way Evelyn’s husband creates a partner to his own specifications mirrors the way that misogyny is often rooted in the desire to make women conform to the standards men and society have set for them.

However, the ethical issues explored in the story go deeper than that. The main plot of Evelyn trying to work with her clone to cover up her husband’s death is interspersed with flashbacks to Evelyn’s own childhood. The parallels between the way people treat Evelyn’s clone and the way Evelyn’s father treated her mother raise some interesting questions about not just misogyny, but about nature vs nurture, how people can change depending on the amount of agency they’re afforded, and what counts as the “real” version of someone.

The ending of the book doesn’t fully tie up many of the moral questions inherent in the story, but that leaves the reader open to fill in some of the blanks themselves. Overall, if you’re in the mood for something dark, speculative, cerebral, and quietly thriller-like, you might want to check this out!

CWs: Murder, blood, misogyny, loss of bodily autonomy, domestic abuse recounted, cheating, vomit.
Spice level: None.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Blood, and Vomit

Moderate: Murder, Infidelity, and Domestic abuse

taylor13's review

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Murder, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Misogyny, Vomit, Violence, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Pregnancy, Gore, Death, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Infidelity, Grief, and Death of parent

nyoom's review

challenging emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

0.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Emotional abuse, Gore, Medical trauma, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Trafficking, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Grief, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Violence, Ableism, Alcoholism, Child death, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Medical content, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Pregnancy, Racism, Sexism, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Vomit

Moderate: Abandonment, Car accident, Cursing, Fire/Fire injury, Infertility, Racial slurs, and Terminal illness

Minor: Sexual content

msjenne's review

dark tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Blood, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Body horror, Death, Child abuse, Gore, Medical trauma, Infidelity, Misogyny, Murder, and Vomit

Moderate: Physical abuse, Pregnancy, and Suicide

emptychurches's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• 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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Medical content, and Murder

Moderate: Abandonment, Confinement, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Pregnancy, Sexism, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Child abuse

Minor: Ableism, Abortion, Alcohol, Body horror, Misogyny, and Vomit

booksthatburn's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

5.0

THE ECHO WIFE gripped me from the first line, using calm and precise language to build a horrific tale of abuse and death. Every revelation drops like a stone into water, raising the level by inches until it feels like it can hold no more.

This is a well-paced thriller which doles out disturbing news just often enough to be unsettling. Evelyn's descriptions consistently bury the lede, pondering first the reactions and consequences to some very important piece of information before finally circling back to say what caused the fuss in the first place. It reshapes the weight of these moments to emphasize how dealing with each horrible (and sometimes not so horrible) event affects those who remain. It's disassociation in book form, as if Evelyn isn't ready to look at what's going on and must approach everything at an angle in order to have any chance of reaching it at all. I especially love the complex discussions about the ethics of cloning, the difference between what Nathan did and what Evelyn does, if there is one. 

It's about healing, clawing back by inches what was taken and filling in new things where the old bits are lost forever. Figuring out what bits of Evelyn and Martine belong to themselves, leaving space for them to want different things even though they started out as the same person. It's shaped by the absence of an abuser, the gap left behind by someone who demanded that every thought fit his needs. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Medical content, and Death

Moderate: Sexism, Grief, Alcohol, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Violence, Domestic abuse, and Murder

Minor: Suicide, Death of parent, and Abortion

Contains a staged suicide.

amressing's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Infidelity, Medical content, Murder, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Vomit

nxclx's review

dark mysterious tense fast-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

4.0

This was such an interesting read, and while not the "nonstop thrill" that the synopsis said that it would be, I found it captivating and thought provoking. Personally, I think it reads more as a novella, with limited characters and a somewhat vague and limited setting. Kind of a mix of This is How You Lose the Time War mixed with the gore of Wilder Girls or The Grace Year. It didn't keep me on the edge of my seat, but rather had me calmly bracing for what was to come next, as if I was in the narrators shoes. It worked really well for me and I'll definitely be checking out the authors other works.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Pregnancy, Suicide, and Gore

Moderate: Car accident and Death of parent

Minor: Vomit