Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda

7 reviews

danaaliyalevinson's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

This book was short and sweet. A misanthropic ‘Buffy’ and ‘what I eat in a day’ video obsessed vampire artist grapples with art and connection in present day London. If you’re a fan of Otessa Moshfegh and Ocean Vuong… imagine a vampire novel written by the two of them.

At the end of the day, this book was about breaking generational trauma, and female desire and its challenge to the gender hierarchy. And I don’t exclusively mean sexual desire, I mean ambition as well.

The prose was absolutely beautiful. The characters were rich and fascinating. Sometimes I felt the grand themes got away from the book a little. But overall, I really really enjoyed this one.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Racism, Murder, Dementia, Sexism, Blood, Death, Grief, Gore, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Sexual assault, and Sexual harassment

jackieyvette's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Wow. Wow. And wow again.
I’ve been a fan of vampire based literature since I was 10 years old, first with Twiligh; then classics like Dracula  and Carmella; historical fiction like A Dowry of Blood and Interview with the Vampire; back around to contemporary teen based magazine ones like Vampire Academy and Crave; all the shows and movies you can think of. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, True Blood, Vampire Diaries, What We Do In the Shadows, Van Helsing, The Lost Boys, heck even Hotel Transylvania. The list goes on til the end of time, but I have never read anything like this. 
Claire Kohda writes like a woman unhinged. Like there’s nowhere but up, but she’d rather plummet head first down into the abyss. Writing this lush should be against the law. 
Lydia is a woman we all know. She’s inside of us all. She thinks what we think and acts like we act. A vampire, but more human than you can ever put into words. 


Crying score: yes, I’ll think about this book for the rest of my life. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Murder, Blood, Death, Gore, Xenophobia, Abandonment, Sexism, Animal death, Cannibalism, Mental illness, and Racism

paperknotbooks's review against another edition

challenging dark hopeful mysterious reflective 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

4.75

Lyd’s a complicated character, but surprisingly relatable. She feels more human than most characters.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Mental illness, Blood, Eating disorder, Racism, and Stalking

Moderate: Sexual assault

chichio's review against another edition

emotional reflective 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

3.0

This book’s premise had crazy strong potential. All in all, I think using vampirism to explore the themes of disordered eating, self-hatred and disconnection from one’s father was genuinely very interesting but the character used to do this exploring was just FLAT. 

The character voice wasn’t strong or interesting enough to keep me really engaged throughout reading the book and that’s why it took me so long to finish it tbh. 

I did really enjoy how this is really just a coming of age story, with the supernatural elements just sprinkled in to enrich the common discussions being made surrounding how 20-something-year-olds navigate life and adulthood. I just wish our narrator had more life (no pun intended) infused into her so I could adore her and her story rather than feeling like I was labouring through it all. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Eating disorder, and Self harm

radtastical's review against another edition

sad 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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Dementia, Animal death, Mental illness, and Blood

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Sexual content, Racial slurs, Pregnancy, Grief, Cancer, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Self harm, Racism, and Animal death

netthauser's review against another edition

dark reflective slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Mental illness, Dementia, Emotional abuse, Sexual harassment, and Toxic relationship

wherethebooksgo's review against another edition

dark emotional funny reflective medium-paced

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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and Animal death

Moderate: Mental illness, Sexual assault, Violence, Dementia, Grief, Panic attacks/disorders, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Death of parent, Bullying, and Cancer