Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

Dead Collections by Isaac Fellman

8 reviews

catch__up's review

hopeful reflective 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Chronic illness, Injury/Injury detail, and Dysphoria

Moderate: Death, Transphobia, Sexual content, Confinement, Car accident, Grief, and Outing

Minor: Medical content, Violence, Bullying, Alcohol, Infertility, Physical abuse, Deadnaming, and Infidelity

thecolouryes's review against another edition

challenging hopeful inspiring reflective 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

This was a fantastic book. It took me much longer to read than I expected; not because the plot is slow, exactly, things happen at a decent pace, but because there was a lot of content to chew on. It's ultimately a book about identity and choosing to live as opposed to just not being dead. The vampirism is a metaphor, but not in the way you think. (It's a metaphor. It's always a metaphor, even if the creator didn't intend it as a metaphor.) 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Outing, Confinement, Mental illness, Blood, Dysphoria, and Transphobia

Minor: Sexism, Grief, Sexual content, Lesbophobia, Body shaming, Car accident, Deadnaming, Death, Homophobia, and Toxic relationship

amy_reading_23's review

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.75

This book is an interesting one, and it definitley got me thinking. It doesn't have much of a plot but is more like a slice of life. Its about a trans vampire archivist falling in love with another queer person whilst also working through depression and questioning the liminality between life and death.

It reads more like experimental literary fiction than fantasy - the vampirism is used as a metaphor for chronic illness, living in a trans body, and being othered. If you are questioning your gender or identity then there are definitley bits of this books that can feel quite affirming. Overall it is quite a challenging book though, I wouldn't read it just for fun, but there were elements I liked. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Outing, Chronic illness, Transphobia, Confinement, Violence, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Blood, Death, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, Car accident, Grief, and Mental illness

coyodie's review

dark emotional hopeful reflective slow-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Chronic illness, Cursing, Dysphoria, Sexual content, Outing, Transphobia, Mental illness, and Medical content

Moderate: Medical trauma, Car accident, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, and Confinement

Minor: Infertility, Addiction, Deadnaming, Misogyny, and Violence

uranaishi's review

dark emotional hopeful mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Chronic illness, Confinement, Dysphoria, Transphobia, Medical content, Outing, and Sexual content

Moderate: Body horror, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Body shaming, Bullying, Deadnaming, Death, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Grief, Hate crime, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Alcohol and Car accident

toopunkrockforshul's review

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective 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

As a vampire fan I loved it, the lore was really interesting, and as an archivist I loved it, it was like a love letter to the job. And as a transmasc Jew in fandom I loved it because it felt like being seen.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Outing, Deadnaming, Car accident, Body horror, Blood, Death, Transphobia, Medical content, Chronic illness, Terminal illness, Sexual content, and Confinement

Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Incest

elliotvanz's review

emotional hopeful mysterious reflective 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

4.0

Wow. This cut close to the quick for me.

If you're looking for slick supernatural vampires doing slick supernatural vampire things that's not what this book is interested in. This one is more literary and interested in considering what vampirism might look like if it was more like an illness. I for one found it fascinating, and I was glad I went into it with very little foreknowledge nor expectations. This is a meditative and broody book, not an adventure yarn.

This story reads a bit like a noir, especially with the snappy dialogue, but there isn't really a mystery to solve in any traditional sense. It's much more of a romance than anything else, though the style and structure are not what I would call romantic. It's peppered with alternate styles of writing, like message board posts, articles, emails, and text threads, just like the archives that are so central to the story and the main character. The writing is crisp and evocative, descriptive without ever becoming flowery. The pace clips along. The real focus, though, is on character and how it feels to walk through life when you're different and the world isn't made for you, especially when you feel hollowed out and stuck. You could replace vampirism with any host of disabilities and the story remains intact. 

So much of this book is about trans identity (especially trans masculine and genderfluid), disability, discrimination, being nocturnal, being in love, watching an old life and the things you cared about decay, and trying to build something new when you're scared and don't know if you can. It's about taking chances, some you should and some you shouldn't. It's about figuring out who you are and who you want to be. It's also about archives and what we leave behind. And yeah, I guess it's also about vampires.

I'm glad I took a chance on this one when the author's debut was so lukewarm for me. I look forward to future offerings.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Transphobia, Chronic illness, Ableism, and Blood

Moderate: Medical content, Outing, Terminal illness, Grief, Body horror, Car accident, Confinement, and Dysphoria

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Deadnaming, and Infertility

alymac42's review against another edition

hopeful lighthearted relaxing sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Outing and Transphobia

Moderate: Dysphoria and Confinement