Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Apsēstie by Chuck Palahniuk

45 reviews

challenging dark tense fast-paced
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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challenging dark sad tense medium-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

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challenging dark slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book was a miserable experience. It feels like the amalgamation of story ideas created by a 16-year old trying to scare their peers by writing the most foul things to come to mind was smashed together with a loose thread of a "plot" and called a novel. These are stories that teenage boys sit around a campfire coming up with in an attempt to get the most negative reaction from their friends. If this book was kept to that - a collection of short stories - it would garner more respect from me. Instead it attempts to tie all of these atrocities together with the false confidence you would expect from the same previously mentioned teenage boys. 

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dark funny mysterious slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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dark reflective tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

If the first short story, “Guts”, doesn’t turn you away- you might be ready for the whole ride.

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challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective tense 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

What an absolute delight! #JusticeforCoraAndrews (the cat and the person)

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dark tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book is certainly impossible to recommend, but I picked this up during my gross out/disturbing book trip I was on a while ago. I knew this was on a bunch of disturbing book icebergs, talked about on a lot of lists of books that pushed people to their limit when it came to themes explored and scenarios described. I have also heard and read a lot of reviews that described this novel as "disgusting just to be disgusting", a collection of short stories that only existed to showcase the absolute worst a person could put into text essentially. This book is such a mixed bag, which i expect from short story collections. While I was reading though, the main plot as well as the short stories would sometimes really make me think and reflect. Sure, a lot of it was disgusting, things I wish I wouldnt have had to read, chapters I wanted to skip because they made me uncomfortable, but I was surprised with how many of the described scenarios felt so oddly and uncomfortably...relevant? Idk maybe I am giving this too much grace, maybe I am too desperate to always find a meaning and a lesson in whatever I read, relate it to what I am experiencing now, wonder if the author looks back at it now and feels shocked and how disgustingly mundane things we once thought of as indescribably cruel have now become.  This book is now 20 years old and I was a little shocked at how relevant I deemed a few of these short stories. They made me sit and think about the world, about how a scenario in a horror novel, written to gross out and disturb, doesnt seem so far fetched nowadays. Stuff like this, it probably happens, I wouldnt be surprised if it happens, I can see that it is happening. I know the intention behind this work was to make horror out of the mundane, find a way to twist every day scenarios into something gross and disturbing and that really affected me because I feel like the world grows harsher and more violent every day. 

I cant really get into everything I am thinking about this, I really wish I could because I had a lot of thoughts while reading this. Overall, there were a lot of chapters and stories I found actually didnt have a lot to say, or rather got too caught in themselves to say what I thought they might wanted to say. Sometimes I noticed words contradicting the message of a piece, chapters that could really underline a point well are kind of muddled with a bad choice of descriptions, if that makes any sense. 

Overall I would say if you scare easily, if you arent up to reading about extremely upsetting topics, this novel is not for you. But i found the premise sort of fascinating, it reveals a lot about humanities real nature in a similar way that movies like Saw do. I would say if you enjoy the Saw franchise you might enjoy the main plot of this, it pushes characters to their absolute limit and makes them deal with the consequences amongs themselves. Interesting to see how far people could go, given the circumstances. 

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dark funny mysterious reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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dark funny sad tense fast-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

Do not read this book if you have literally any triggers. Most people know about the pool scene, but there's also horrific transphobia, child abuse, and animal death. Proceed with caution. 

So, obviously this is kind of a gross book. That aside, I did have trouble getting into it for like the first 2/3rds. This wasn't because of the gross stuff...it was more because I thought it was so stupid. People don't work like this, logic doesn't work like this, the world doesn't work like this. I got hung up on wondering whether Chuck P actually believed this is how things are.

This was exasperated by the fact that there are like 16 main characters, and I found their voices and personalities pretty indistinguishable. It felt like Chuck P was using these puppets to make the same stupid points over and over.

But the last 1/3rd of the book, imo, made his kafka-adjacent logic more obviously purposeful. It helped that the themes of haunting, storytelling, and performance were spelled out for dumdums like me. I loved the ending of this book.

That being said, even though I was tempted to rate this 4 stars, I went with 3.75 because I am fresh off this novel and worried that l was being biased by a spectacular ending tacked onto a so-so book.

Also I hated the poetry. Gd, did I hate the poetry.

This isn't a boring book, by any means. I just found it frustrating in the beginning. I did think the
foot job stuff
was hilarious. 

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