Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Dead Collections by Isaac Fellman

22 reviews

anxieteaisme's review

dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious reflective 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? Yes

3.75

This had a lot less vampire than I expected and a lot more trans, which I’m fine with. I liked the vampire concept in this book, their lives etc, I just wish it was more fleshed out. I also like the comparison between vampirism and transness; it’s a really interesting one. 
Overall it was pretty good, just not my favourite. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, and Grief

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: 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

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

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

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: 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

vulgarboy's review

emotional mysterious 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

4.0

Loss of points for deadname existing for the sake of existing, but maybe that's my own personal bias. Anyway, this was interesting. Sol was compelling and complicated, and it was refreshing to read about characters above the age of 35 still actively struggling with things like gender identity and sexuality. It proves that those are fluid, and it is never too late to change. I feel like the book was more character focused than plot focused, which isn't a bad thing! I just wish it had a little more about how certain things worked. I liked the normalization of vampirism, the cast of very dynamic and complicated characters. Yet, when I finished, I found myself not aching for any of them or wishing for more. It was a simple wrap up, a concise ending. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Deadnaming, Sexual content, Transphobia, and Grief

Moderate: Car accident

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 :]

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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

eegekay's review

emotional 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Death, Sexual content, Transphobia, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Car accident, and Dysphoria

rockyroadbutch's review

emotional hopeful 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Chronic illness, Death, Blood, and Grief

dananana's review

emotional hopeful reflective

• 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

 i absolutely loved loved loved this 💙🤍💖 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Death, Sexual content, Transphobia, Blood, Grief, Outing, and Dysphoria

Moderate: Car accident

Minor: Deadnaming

solspringsreads's review against another edition

emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

3.25

I have really complicated feelings about this book. I spent a large portion of my time reading this book just sending my friend live texts trying to figure out how I felt and why I felt it—there’s a lot of gender discussion that made me feel not great, though it was clearly reflective of the author’s own relationship with gender and sexuality and didn’t seem to come from a place of intentionally triggering intense dysphoria in potential readers (AKA it’s not necessarily the book, it’s me)—and very little time just… enjoying the book.
Even so, the actual plot of this book is pretty interesting. It somehow manages to be exactly as advertised (vampire archivist!) and not at all what is advertised and then also more than what is advertised. The relationship between the main characters burns incredibly fast and is very intense, and like many other readers, I’m not sure I really… liked the main relationship. Not that I’m even sure that I’m supposed to? It’s complicated.
This is a book about very messy, flawed people trying to work through their chaos together. It’s not trying to be healthy or idealized, and that’s pretty great! We deserve to have messy queer characters figuring out who they are. I really appreciated what this book was doing thematically, even if the execution wasn’t my favorite. This book can also be very emotionally taxing if you, too, are a messy, flawed person trying to work through your chaos. Please check the trigger warnings before picking this one up.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Biphobia, Deadnaming, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infidelity, Misogyny, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Car accident, Lesbophobia, Outing, and Dysphoria