Reviews tagging 'Death'

Dead Collections by Isaac Fellman

25 reviews

c_alexander's review against another edition

Found the writing style to be a little too repetitive, and the characters didn’t feel fully fleshed out. Got told details about the protagonist without ever experiencing them. The actual plot was also a bit vague sometimes in favour of the protagonists inner world - eg it wasn’t even clear at the start that it was the two character’s first time meeting which is an important detail

The description of women, physically, in general was a little uncomfortable. Some parts
parts also read like the author just found out about the word “dyke” and was excited to show it off, yet despite that there wasn’t really exploration into the experience or even existence of transmasc lesbians? Which seemed a bit antithetical

Also struggled with the reliance on fanfiction + ao3 as a plot device. It’s clear this was written by an archivist who has a deep passion for the craft, but the particular way fandom was used to explore this really fell flat. The TV show the protagonist is involved in the fandom of also had a LOT of excerpts and long descriptions of what happened in it - it felt very much like that was a seperate story the author also wanted to tell, but it didn’t run parallel to the story of Dead Collections, we just got random chunks of it 

It definitely read like the love interest was going to realise they’re genderqueer and the joking/hinting about this was really stale/stunted/awkward

Usually love work that is queer in structure/form/style as well as in storytelling, and the autobiographical feel of the narrative was interesting, but found I was forcing myself to get through each chapter of this

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual content

Minor: Death, Transphobia, and Injury/Injury detail

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

---

Content Warnings

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

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

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

dearvillains's review

3.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Death, Sexual content, Transphobia, Blood, Medical content, Lesbophobia, and Dysphoria

Moderate: Ableism, Deadnaming, Infidelity, Misogyny, and Suicidal thoughts

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.) 

---

Content Warnings

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

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

awildeasriel's review

dark funny hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Deadnaming, Death, Hate crime, Transphobia, Violence, and Dysphoria

Minor: Infertility, Car accident, and Pandemic/Epidemic

This book deals with some heavy topics, including transphobia, vampirism and AIDS. It includes depictions of dysphoria, hate crimes and physical abuse as part of this, and the deadname of the protagonist and his partner are revealed. The book generally deals with the matters sensitively however it may be offputting to readers particularly affected by any of these issues.

gabefish's review

dark funny hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

Using vampirism and fandom as a lens to view queer, trans, and disabled bodies. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Body horror, Chronic illness, Violence, Blood, Outing, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Deadnaming and Transphobia

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. 

---

Content Warnings

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

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

pobi's review

dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

A very good book, but a bit too sad and existential (and romancey) for my taste tbh. I liked the way it played with form, and it's nice to read a book about trans masc people!

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Hate crime, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Blood, Car accident, Outing, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Addiction, Infidelity, and Dysphoria

blue_bird31's review

emotional reflective sad 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

3.0

This book follows Sol who for most of the book is going through a dark shitty time. He is adrift and lost as he has not accepted that he is a vampire. The book becomes hopeful and adventurous in the last 20 pages or so.

I loved the discussion of fanfic and shipping culture. In conversations between queer characters there were queer patterns/styles of speech that I really appreciated. There was also discussion about the remnants of a body in objects after death.

This was a good book, but I was not in the right frame of mind at the time. I was dragging myself through reading this book as it was ruminating on someone who was having a difficult time in life and I should have been reading something more hopeful.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Transphobia

Minor: Medical content

necroplasm's review

dark funny 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

3.5

another unfortunate victim of the "book recommended to me by a tiktok that pitched it as something completely different from what it actually is which causes me to not like it as much because it's just so not what i was expecting" curse, though thankfully not the most egregious example bc i did still enjoy the book! dark academia it was not, but it did have some interesting musings on gender and a neat take on vampires that i haven't really seen anything similar to before, also probably serving as a metaphor for several things, most of which probably went over my head. also the first book i've ever read that revolves around fanfic/fandom in such a prominent and  genuinely sincere way, which was also quite neat to me! hearing ao3 get mentioned in a real published work nearly made me do a spit take but i still had fun :]

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Sexual content, Grief, and Outing

Moderate: Death, Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Blood, Medical content, and Car accident

Minor: Deadnaming and Pregnancy