Reviews with content warning for Alcohol - McGlue

Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

alexandrabelze's review

dark mysterious 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

2.25

look, i love otessa moshfegh’s writing style, but i can’t looks past the recurrent use of slurs throughout the book. it would be different if they only appeared every once in a while, but there were times when there were 3+ slurs on a single page. and i didn’t fuck with that. i understand what she was trying to pull off with the narrator, but it was too extreme. i love a good unlikeable or unreliable narrator—if done right. mcglue was not done right. it could’ve been done right if it had been written as “gay pirates with internalized homophobia learn to love each other and themselves.” sadly, i would instead describe this as “the narrator drops the f slur and racist comments every ten sentences while pining for another man.” disappointment.

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youngluteplayer's review against another edition

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challenging dark medium-paced

Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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readerette's review

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challenging dark 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

4.5

The writing style made sense for the character's inner voice, but it was difficult to get a lot of meaning from it sometimes. This definitely feels intentional, and while I appreciate why the author did it, it also made the story and characters harder to follow.

I'm glad it is a novella; a whole novel of this writing style and this level of darkness would have been too much.

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crow6e098's review

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4.75

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angel_kiiss's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective 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? It's complicated

3.0

This book is about 40 pages too long. And what I mean is the 40 pages where f*g is splattered across the page should have been heavily edited. Also, shoehorned racism and an unnecessary drop of the hard r n-word.

Moshfegh is a gifted writer, the last hundred pages reflect this, but I haven’t come across such an ‘edgy’ woman in a very long time. “Oh, she’s raw, she tells it like it is,” can happen without the flippant use of slurs.

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bonnie_xx's review against another edition

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dark fast-paced

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

2.0

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nialiversuch's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

3.25

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kclark's review against another edition

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challenging emotional mysterious sad 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

3.75

The first 40% of this book or so was extremely disorienting which makes sense given the plot of the novel. I appreciate a story that does something I don't expect, but I also see why people might bounce off of it, but I liked it.

The book deals a lot with memory and it's ephemeral nature of memory, constructions of masculinity and how that intersects with friendships and sexuality, and how class distorts how our culture views guilt and innocence, among much else.

The protagonist reminded me of other Moshveigh protagonists: lonely outsiders struggling to connect to society but this time in the mold of a drunken sailor. That sort of archetypical writing is understandable given this is Moshveigh's first published work.

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