Reviews with content warning for Dysphoria - Dead Collections

Reviews tagging 'Dysphoria'

Dead Collections by Isaac Fellman

35 reviews

uranaishi's review

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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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dustycedar's review

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lighthearted fast-paced

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

1.0

I had high hopes for this book ): This book is clearly semi-autobiographical if you read about the author.. but the main character isn’t one that I enjoyed reading about. It does a good job of actually representing how depression greatly impacts your life/ability to do basic things. But, overall I don’t think it was a great book. An attempt at banter & queer sex scenes that I think just came off as cringe. This is basically a self inserted fan fic of a fandom that doesn’t exist.
The format makes no sense— a lot of extra unnecessary information, some of which ruins potential for some scenes to have any suspense.
He used similes in like every other sentence.
This author is trans, and lets us down by describing the romantic interest the way any cis guy would. Really focused on “her tits” (literally his wording, “tits”).

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lunacurlypaws's review

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emotional hopeful 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? No

5.0

A beautiful book! I'm very glad I read it, even if it made me cry for many reasons.

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lipstickitotheman's review against another edition

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dark emotional 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

5.0

Genuine addition to the vampire canon. I really really liked reading this book.

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sjames's review

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funny reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

The joy of Dead Collections comes from the dialogue between the characters who discuss fandom, transness, archives, and vampires in equal measure. Although there is little plot or suspense, Fellman’s strength is the relationships he sets up like between Sol and his butch lesbian coworker, Florence, who despise each other while feeling as if they should or must be friends as the only queer people at the archive.

At times I felt as if I was reading a Lou Sullivan vampire!au, though that’s in the keenest spirit of the book.

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booksthatburn's review against another edition

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emotional funny 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? It's complicated

5.0

DEAD COLLECTIONS is an exploration of memories and identity via a Jewish trans vampire living in his office as an archivist, falling in love with a widow who drops off a collection for the archive.

I love this book. The explorations of gender and identity follow a general template that feels meant to open the door for the reader to ask themselves questions, while also being deeply specific to the characters (a trans man who’s also Jewish and a vampire, a person who begins the story identifying as a bisexual woman) and the setting (USA, circa 2018). The romance is intimate and erotic, with an intensity which comes from two people exploring themselves as much as they're getting closer to each other.

This feels so wonderfully believable and specific in every little detail, from the attempt at safety which led to Sol living at work, to the messiness of Elsie exploring new love as she deals with the stuff left behind after her wife’s passing. Sol and Else talking, laughing, and fucking, with the background issue of Sol dealing with things at work.

The worldbuilding is subtle and minimalistic, basically modern times but where vampires exist and are known to medical science. It grounds itself in a time and a place (but with vampires) and then doesn't try to explain what the place means, but lets itself just exist.

The audiobook narrator is great. There’s a bit a little past halfway through involving several people’s emails back and forth, and it’s a pretty serious moment, but there’s a memetic quality to the way the narrator reads it. If you like audiobooks then definitely give this one a shot, as their performance works so well with the story and the characters.

I love this so much, it's a fantastic premise, well executed, and the whole thing is just so perfect.

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