Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin

22 reviews

issymaae's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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wannabeedreamer's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad fast-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? It's complicated

3.25

I feel like the story fell flat for a couple of reasons
  1. I didn’t like the mystical aspects of the story, like how David was mysteriously doing things or the greenhouse because it made me expect more at the end of the book and nothing happened that was a “big magic reveal” or something
  2. I don’t like books where the title gives away the story, cause you read the title, know that’s what the story is, but you want it to be more and discover the story yourself. I wanted to be surprised it was a fever dream but at the same time that trope is (in my opinion) more lazy and overused. However this wasn’t AS bad as the typical “it was all a dream” because you’re aware it’s a dream, minus the David part 

I honestly would’ve enjoyed it a lot more if it just focused on her in this poisoned environment not aware WITHOUT all the mystical elements. This could’ve very well been a realistic horror novella on its own without the supernatural elements. Overall I did enjoy reading the books aside from being confused from time to time, and even though I was disappointed after finishing. 
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plantonic_friendships's review

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challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Maybe audiobook wasn't the right medium, but it was nonsensical in an unenjoyable way.

Haha, but I'll give the book this: it truly is a fevered dream. 
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hypnopedia's review

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Very quick read, still some questions. This book reads like Bojack Horseman's View From Halfway Down episode. If you know, you know.
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opal_scorpio's review against another edition

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

4.5

super suspenseful and confusing book. i started it at like midnight thinking i’d just read a bit but instead i ended up staying awake until almost 4 am reading the whole thing in one sitting. and it was so worth it!! 
 
i was so fascinated by the plot and how it’s laid out in a back and forth, conversational manner with David (who is probably a hallucination). 
 
the environment being the villain/killer of the story was really interesting instead of it being david’s change haunting the town. it’s such a rational explanation that you don’t even think about it!! but the deformities and miscarriages of the children of the town and the mysterious animals deaths could be explained by whatever that chemical was in the barrels. 
 
it’s sad that david is blamed for the spooky stuff when in reality his brain was probably fried from the illness that killed the horse and the subsequent fever that lasted for days, NOT his soul being split. 
 
throughout the story it’s hard to tell what is reality and what is made up, but the entire conversation is probably also made up in amanda’s head. but i think what really drives home the “fever dream” is amanda seeing her husband visit david’s father looking for answers and her imagining her daughter had switched souls with david. so scary and kinda plausible within the world but since she, the narrator, dies at the end of the story it makes you, the reader, rethink everything she has recounted up until that point.
 
fantastic book!! 10/10! 
(any technical issues i have with the book are being attributed to its translation from spanish to english. i think the plot was fantastic, just some words here and there that maybe didn’t make a lot of sense but again i think it’s a translation issue and not the author’s fault.)
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f18's review

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dark sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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emily_koopmann's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense fast-paced

2.5

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dustghosts's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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marywahlmeierbracciano's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

4.75

The creepy child vibes are strong with this one, and narrator Hillary Huber absolutely nails it.  One mother’s attempt to save her child is met with a curse, and another’s vacation is brought to a screeching halt when she wakes up dying with little memory of how she got there.  This is one of those books where you don’t really know what’s going on at first, the story gradually unfolding through its final pages.  Fever Dream has a sense of foreboding, unsettling urgency and reads like a short story.  In search of “the exact moment” everything went wrong, you won’t want to put it down.
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clara_mai's review against another edition

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4.0

 Passend zum Titel der englischen Übersetzung (ich habe die deutsche namens "Das Gift" gelesen), würde ich diesen kurzen Roman der Kategorie Fiebertraum-Horror zuordnen. Ein geniales Buch; spannend, surreal und beunruhigend. Die Nutzung von giftigen Pestiziden in Argentinien als Element des Horrors anzuwenden auch ein brillianter Zug der Autorin. Sehr gut aus dem argentinischen Spanisch ins Deutsche übersetzt von Marianne Gareis. 
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