Reviews tagging 'Cancer'

Any Man by Amber Tamblyn

14 reviews

ghost_rider's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

Sickening, but the audio version is great and immersive. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Child abuse, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Sexual violence, Suicide, Body horror, Self harm, Eating disorder, and Sexual assault

Minor: Deadnaming and Cancer

allapaz's review

3.75

the writing here was killer, the character explorations were good, if not a little inconsistent with some characters given way more depth than others, but my biggest question with this one is....who is this for? a VERY difficult read and yes it's impactful and raw and disgusting in places, but this seems marketed toward the social demographic that already knows what the commentary is saying? 

tl;dr: good book, hard to recommend

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Eating disorder, Sexism, Animal death, Rape, Animal cruelty, Blood, Suicide, Violence, Self harm, Gore, Death, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Deadnaming, Pedophilia, Suicidal thoughts, and Child abuse

Moderate: Cancer

evelynritzi's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

3.75

Oh my god. I haven’t read a book in one sitting is a while and I just finished this in a few hours. This is a very, very dark book about male SA. It’s told in a poetic way, through the lens of letters, journal entries, tweets, chat rooms, and news articles. It really hooks you from the beginning and holds on tight right until the end. Damn. 

The biggest takeaway is how the public/media drives the narrative of male vs. female SA. 

Women being assaulted and victimized has become so expected that there are entire marathons of tv shows (looking at you’d SVU) capitalizing on it. Males being SA’d is shocking and gets more attention. When women are assaulted they are doubted. People ask what they were wearing and did they ask for it. When men are assaulted they are mocked. People ask why they didn’t defend themselves. 

One part I felt was so gross and unnecessary…

THE CAT WTF 😩

This was quite dark and I had to add like 12 trigger warnings. But if you’re up for it, I’d still recommend! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Sexual assault, Deadnaming, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Blood, Eating disorder, Self harm, Rape, Sexual violence, Suicide attempt, Cancer, and Pedophilia

likeagilmoregirl's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, Gore, Mental illness, Animal death, Grief, Rape, Sexual content, Alcoholism, Blood, Cursing, Homophobia, Medical trauma, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Cancer, Child abuse, Deadnaming, Self harm, and Suicidal thoughts

wickedgrumpy's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

2.5

Well, I was looking for a change of pace and I think I got it.  The topic itself is hard to read about, hard to talk about, etc.

The writing was quite well done, kind of a bit of mixed media with the journal entries, chat logs, transcripts, poetry, and radio show vibes.  The first three victims were well fleshed out and their trauma was ever present and horrifying.  The later ones felt more superficial though I'm not really sure why.  There were also quite a few questions that were raised in the plot that were never answered that made it feel a bit rushed.

I do think this is a good book that has a lot of value in representing sexual assault as a whole and especially in male victims.  However, with all that in mind, I don't feel like I was the intended audience because I don't generally like to read books about rape.  I suppose I didn't expect it to be quite so graphic about it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Suicide, Blood, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Rape, Self harm, Violence, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Suicide attempt, Medical content, Body horror, and Torture

Minor: Abandonment, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Murder, Bullying, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cancer, Cursing, Drug use, Alcoholism, Kidnapping, and Alcohol

chloseencounter's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-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

Any Man was a stunning and unique experience. I’d 100% recommend the audio book because it’s extremely immersive. 

I really enjoyed hearing all the different POVs of the antagonist’s victims, this was a very raw look into all the various outcomes that can come from surviving sexual assault, weather it’s dealing by humor, family, control, emptiness, self destructive behavior, or even suicide. While the characters were interesting and their storylines were heartbreaking, the most special thing to me about this novel is the look at what women so often deal with when faced with sexual violence but through the eyes of a man. Unfortunately female victims of sexual assault are all too common, we hear about it so much in fact, our society has become desensitized to the sexual abuse women face and how it’s handled by the public. Flipping the narrative and using men as the victims not only opens up an important conversation about men who have experienced sexual violence and how they are treated but also made the subject feel much more shocking. Then I suppose we can ask ourselves…why is that? Why is being sexually assaulted as a women so commonplace that it doesn’t feel nearly as gut wrenching to read?

The most eye opening part in my opinion was the very last bit, when our serial rapist responds to the journalist, in which she replies with a lot of grotesque language about how a women might think about men as essentially prey or even nonhuman. Then she sends the same exact paragraph replacing the pronouns with she/her, it was sort of appalling to see how different those paragraphs felt right next to one another. Why one was shocking and the other…felt sort of normal. As a women it was easy for me to read the paragraph and think “yea that’s just how men often think of us”, and yet the same exact paragraph but with men as the group being preyed upon felt much more abhorrent. 

At the end of the day, I think that ultimately there wasn’t one predator but multiple women predators. The story seemed to lump these people into one frightening amalgamation of a women because how could society believe that there may be multiple women out there preying upon men, it must be a repeat offender. However, when a women is attacked it could literally be “any man”, which is a very smart way to make a statement about how both male and female victims of sexual violence are seen unfairly by the general public.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Alcoholism, Animal death, Blood, Grief, Medical content, Medical trauma, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Torture, Death, Eating disorder, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Cancer, Child abuse, Transphobia, Rape, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide

megcrs's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Blood, Self harm, Rape, Sexual violence, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, and Animal cruelty

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Murder, Misogyny, Deadnaming, Cancer, Suicide attempt, and Transphobia

Minor: Alcoholism

cnricochet's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia and Self harm

Moderate: Sexual assault, Suicide, Murder, Cancer, Rape, Injury/Injury detail, Emotional abuse, and Blood

Minor: Terminal illness, Alcoholism, Adult/minor relationship, Stalking, Drug use, Animal cruelty, and Deadnaming

hapikohw's review against another edition

dark emotional inspiring sad fast-paced

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

4.0

It started on such a high for me. I really thought it would be a 5-star easy. As we went from the survivor-hood of each of Maude's victims to the general spectacle of the case it dipped for me. It is at its best when the internalization of each man is explored and how they maneuver through relationships of those closest to them. When they are centered. Some of the survivors are given this, and others are not - the last two men. It was bold to use real celebrities and what they would say in an event like this. The sixth man, who was technically the first, and then Maude herself were extremely rushed and that lack of exploration in those chapters really dropped it for me to 4 stars. Maude's logic that she gave the press versus what she actually believes in and why she actually done it is fine, but there should have been more if she was to actually have a moment in the book instead of being the person who got away and exists as a phantom in the public consciousness and the minds of her victims. Still, the experimental approach to the physical and audio book was enough to still be great to me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Cancer, Child abuse, Deadnaming, Eating disorder, Violence, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Transphobia, Death, Rape, Sexual assault, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, and Torture

sphinxofblackquartz's review against another edition

challenging dark sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Animal death, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Blood, Grief, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Vomit, Injury/Injury detail, Transphobia, Self harm, and Suicide

Moderate: Addiction, Deadnaming, and Cancer

Minor: Ableism