Reviews with content warning for Vomit - Magma

I appreciated this work a lot and thought that it was really well thought out. It elicited a lot of empathy and I really felt involved in Lilja's world. I felt it really explored the anxiety and the social pressure of being in a relationship and wanting to be loved, regardless of the behaviour and attitudes of a partner. I also felt it navigated these emotions in such a raw way and in areas of the book, these emotions were so intense.

I would say that this book represents such a graphic account of life in an abusive relationship and I felt that the pace of this book was really fast. I appreciated that chapters being a page or two reflected the snapshots of what Lilja could remember. I thought that the names of the chapters were aptly named. I felt as though the pace also reflected the way in which time passed for Lilja when she was in her relationship.

I haven't given this a star rating because I felt the subject matter was not something that should be 'rated' per se. A further note is that the translation was really smooth and the text flowed really well. A very heavy book, but a book I appreciated a lot.

Content Warnings

lavendar_fr0g's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional 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

2.5

The writing is slightly off, stilled- likely due to translation. It’s an okay look at an abusive relationship, the slow degradation of boundaries and slow acceptance. The guy was bad news off the bat and Lilja is a bit of a jerk (doesn’t mean she deserves it obviously). Ending was a bit abrupt, didn’t resolve anything but it’s meant to make reader decide what happened for themselves.

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kaltain's review against another edition

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emotional fast-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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gabriellejane's review against another edition

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dark fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No

2.75

Not quite sure how I felt about this book, but it only took me an hour to read it so not much time was spent on it. Overall, it just made me sad and the ending kind of sadder.

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karolinakriauzaite's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

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

5.0

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raniaa's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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whatvictoriaread's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad 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? It's complicated

4.0

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shrutislibrary's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad 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

3.75

'Magma', a word I searched desperately throughout this book trying to decipher its meaning: is it lava? a girl's name? a dream lost? an unbridled rage?

Just like the narrator of 'Rebecca', Mrs De Winter who is haunted by the ghost of the lingering Rebecca at Manderley, Lilja is threatened by the ever-present ghost of a girl online, the titular red-haired Magma - the object of her lover's desire, lust and undivided attention.

'Magma' is the story of a 20-year-old college girl named Lilja and her descent into a dark void to which she is inevitably drawn and can't resist until she falls. Until she has reached the end of this dark crevice and she has broken and shattered her very being.

The novella starts with Lilja's heady, whirlwind romance with a man she meets online while travelling in Central America
(whose age we don't get & he has crazy unimaginable fetishes) which quickly turns into a manipulative, co-dependent relationship in which she loses her identity, her dignity, her life and herself and from which she is unable to come out.

The short chapters read like fragmented diary entries by Lilja tracking her psychotic breakdown as we bear witness to her nagging suspicions of her lover's infidelity, her growing jealousy, her resentment, her overlooking the warning signs and disregarding the gaslighting, her denial in thinking she can somehow 'fix' him. Lilja feels lust, love, jealousy, obsession, anger, humiliation, rage, disappointment, denial, erasure and in the end a glimmer of hope amidst the darkness or so we are told. The author has painted a brutally raw picture of the twisted cycle of emotional & psychological dependency on the abuser to the point where Lilja is capable of seeing & acknowledging the gaslighting, the subtle violence and who he truly is but can't will herself to come out of that abuse. For Lilja, the abuse and the manipulation is the normality that defines the dynamic of her relationship.

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