Reviews tagging 'Cannibalism'

Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones

11 reviews

outerscout's review against another edition

adventurous emotional tense slow-paced

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

3.75

found this veeery slow and hard to get into to the point where i kept putting it down for other books over 2 months, but then the ending made me cry a ton. writing is a bit difficult to visualize sometimes, something i noticed continues into the only good indians but found much improved by my heart is a chainsaw. wish there was more build-up to the main twist (?) re:

the externimation company's werewolf piss slavery

but the last part of the book was much more engaging, and love a good framing device reveal. i feel like i'd enjoy it more on a reread

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Animal death, and Animal cruelty

Moderate: Alcohol, Cannibalism, and Torture

avareadsoccasionally's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

I liked it a lot! I thought the concept was fun and I liked how it wasn’t exactly an everyday-werewolf book but it did still lean on some of those old werewolf stories. I thought the pacing of it was nice and I liked how it went back and forth in time as it went through the story. I wouldn’t necessarily consider this horror, though there was gore (which both are fine with me). Overall, a fun book!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death and Blood

Moderate: Body horror, Gore, Alcohol, Cannibalism, Child death, Murder, Death of parent, and Vomit

Minor: Cannibalism

nerodyne's review against another edition

challenging dark 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? Yes

3.75

It's hard to put into words how I feel about Mongrels. It definitely provided a take on werewolves that I haven't really ever seen before, and I think that had I read this book as a kid it would have changed something in me. The moving all the time, living paycheck to paycheck, living in shitty run down trailers and feeling like family is all you got, while worrying you aren't really the same as your family. It's definitely something I experienced in my youth, short of actually being a werewolf myself. When it comes to execution though, I struggled to fully connect with the writing style and while I usually love perspective changes and non linear stories, the ones in this felt a bit clunky and took some time to get used to. Not to mention, the story honestly got pretty nasty at times. It never felt unnecessarily obscene, it was clearly a matter of putting an animalistic lens on people, but I can't deny there were a few times I had to put down the book for a few minutes,

especially regarding the time that Libby fucked a dog and that family of werewolves broke into a Jewish cemetery to eat a recently deceased woman

. All in all, I'd probably recommend the book so long as you're someone who already likes supernatural horror to begin with. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Gore, Animal death, Body horror, and Violence

Moderate: Excrement, Alcohol, Cannibalism, Death of parent, and Vomit

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Antisemitism, and Physical abuse

lynxpardinus's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Death, Cannibalism, Confinement, Excrement, Gore, Death of parent, and Blood

Moderate: Antisemitism, Bullying, Medical content, Xenophobia, Alcohol, Car accident, Domestic abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Torture, Police brutality, Sexual content, Racism, Toxic relationship, and Vomit

Minor: Pedophilia, Homophobia, Adult/minor relationship, and Drug abuse

Contains discussion of bestiality - as well as a scene where a werewolf in shift is mounted by a dog, albeit evidently against her will.
Antisemitism warning is just in case, for a chapter that involves a Jewish cemetery.

bookwormbi's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense 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? It's complicated

4.0

I didn't get this book for most of the time I was reading it. If you're not here for a literary take on werewolves, this book isn't for you. That said, the ending absolutely made the book for me. the last two chapters finally let me know where the book was going and what it was meant to be about, and I'm going to be thinking about it for a while to come. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Animal cruelty, Blood, Body horror, Gun violence, Death, and Death of parent

Moderate: Abandonment, Vomit, Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Rape, Domestic abuse, Torture, Grief, Cannibalism, and Sexual violence

Minor: Adult/minor relationship

There's mentions of bestiality.

nodogsonthemoon's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious sad medium-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Excrement, Violence, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Death, Gore, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Alcohol, Adult/minor relationship, and Alcoholism

vjov's review against another edition

dark emotional medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death and Body horror

Minor: Antisemitism, Cannibalism, and Domestic abuse

re antisemitism: wouldn't say it's meant to be, but the framing of it felt poor

corar's review against another edition

dark emotional slow-paced

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

4.0

Mongrels is a coming of age story about a boy who lives with his aunt and uncle on the fringes of society. They are outcasts that are barely getting by and constantly on the move. The chapters of the book are vignettes of his life that are not always told in order. There will be a chapter when he is eleven and the next will be when he is fifteen and the next will go back to when he is nine. They also switch from first person to third person between chapters. Despite the confusion this could cause, it worked. All of the chapters and the stories they told fit together and the order makes sense for the story. While this is a story about werewolves, it is much more than that. It is a coming of age story about a boy trying to figure out his place in the world. It has a much more literary feel than other werewolf books I have read. I think that anyone that likes werewolf stories should include this in their reading plans, but that those that like more realism in their books may enjoy it too.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death of parent, Death, Excrement, Injury/Injury detail, Vomit, and Animal death

Moderate: Alcohol, Death of parent, and Kidnapping

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Cannibalism, Car accident, Domestic abuse, Fire/Fire injury, and Pregnancy

sofipitch's review against another edition

adventurous dark reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

I adored this book. I'm a slut for monsters as a metaphor for being an outsider, and this book delivered! I really hope this author does a vampire book, I just know it would be great.

I put complicated for diversity bc the character's race is never mentioned (there's an explanation for that at the end and well as why the main character character doesn't share his name) but I pictured the characters as Native American, since I knew that's the author's identity. There's also a part in the book where a child asks the MC if he's Mexican, which is common for Native Americans. But it's not 100% the characters are BIPOC 🤷‍♀️

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore and Violence

Moderate: Death of parent, Grief, Excrement, Cannibalism, Animal death, and Kidnapping

imrereads's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I don't know whether to call this a horror novel, a coming of age, a story about family, a werewolf story... It's all of that, and more. I love the take on werewolves in this story, and how the lore is slowly being revealed. There are really intriguing characters, people with very skewed morals. It took me a bit to get into the story, but once I did I loved it. There's this alternating of first and third person chapters in a nonlinear timeline that's sown so well together. 

This isn't a traditional horror story - if it even is horror. It's quite slow paced, and it follows an unnamed narrator as he grows up and comes of age, waiting to "wolf out" in his dysfunctional werewolf family without knowing for certain that he has the gene. 

I recommend this book, but be vary of the warnings!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Gore, Body horror, Violence, and Death

Moderate: Cannibalism and Gun violence

Minor: Rape, Vomit, Domestic abuse, Antisemitism, and Pedophilia

Regarding the antisemitism and pedophilia warnings:

Pedophilia for a teen pregnancy where the mother was 14. Antisemitism for a scene around temple that's framed weirdly and is quite gory.