Reviews tagging 'Torture'

The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier

6 reviews

jencolumb0's review

adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

A multi-layered exploration into life, the universe, and everything, with a lot of wry side-swipes at pop culture as a lot of Big Questions are posed and Core Assumptions challenged. This book manages to be thought-provoking without bogging itself down. It echoed Amores Perros for me, but border, deeper, and . . . French. The cast of characters is almost unwieldy but that observation (or even discomfort), in itself, encourages the reader down a separate rabbit hole of thought and reflection. This is not the book you pick up when you simply want a story to get lost in. It is far better suited to those nights in which you miss your university philosophy course work but don’t want to actually dig out, dust off, or dive into the original texts. For the right moment, an outstanding jumping off-point for some interesting thought experiments.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Blood, Violence, Terminal illness, Religious bigotry, Murder, Cancer, and Torture

Moderate: Child abuse, Suicide, Pregnancy, and Homophobia

Minor: Antisemitism, War, Genocide, Fire/Fire injury, and Vomit

Specific issues to flag generally covered by the content warnings above: graphic description of dismemberment, passing reference to tattoos from German concentration camps during WWII, and discussion of incestuous child sex abuse that provides the general idea of what happened but does not get into too many details and is positively resolved.

whimsy_and_rigor's review

emotional mysterious reflective tense 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Suicide, Pedophilia, and Torture

Moderate: Acephobia/Arophobia

Minor: Terminal illness, Pedophilia, and Torture

Although these issues are not “minor” they do not make up huge portions of the story. Truly, only a few sentences.

emmaopaline's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Murder, Violence, Torture, Suicide, Gun violence, Grief, and Toxic friendship

eliel's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

The book has fascinating story concept, beautiful characters and great writing.

For me this was the perfect book to read right now. It tied together so many things I have heard and read lately. Definitely a book I can get back to eventually.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicide, Cancer, Incest, Death, Pedophilia, Child abuse, and Self harm

Minor: Torture

ollie_again's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious reflective fast-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? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Murder, Grief, and Death

Moderate: Sexual assault, Child abuse, Homophobia, Hate crime, Cancer, Pedophilia, and Suicide

Minor: Racism, Torture, Religious bigotry, Pregnancy, and Incest

sarah984's review against another edition

challenging reflective slow-paced

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

2.0

I thought the concept of this book was really cool - the characters are duplicated with a four month gap and have an opportunity to make different choices - but the execution didn't work for me. The setup is way too long and the book is much more about the simulation theory than any of the characters. I never felt really connected to anyone and nothing interesting happened. Also the book within a book of The Anomaly sounded terrible.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Confinement, Terminal illness, and Torture

Moderate: Body shaming, Child abuse, Death, Grief, Incest, Medical content, Misogyny, Murder, Pedophilia, Pregnancy, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, Suicide, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Minor: Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Hate crime, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Self harm, and Xenophobia