Reviews with content warning for Emotional abuse - Hurricane Season

Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor

50 reviews

ratthew86's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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enairabutcher's review against another edition

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challenging dark 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

4.5

Intentionally claustrophobic, Fernanda Melchor’s Hurricane Season eliminates paragraph breaks, waxes poetic in near unending sentences, and limits chapters to match the themes of this dark, haunting, and visceral novel. As readers, our perspective on the death of The Witch, who she is, how she came to die, unfold chapter by chapter as we get to know the residents and passersby of a small Mexican village, where poverty, abuse, and addiction plague the people, many of whom care little to improve their situations, grim and depraved as they are, fixated on gossip, rumours that propel the narrative, in its limited view, forward toward something, nay, nothing, that can be considered closure. Such are the lives explored in these pages, fleeting, ending in lightless tunnels, unable to see a path away from the rough hand they were dealt, throwing blame at those who cross them, deserved or not; a metaphor for the cycle of abuse, of trauma, of poverty, of addiction, of depravity, of hunger — all the evil that humanity faces but cannot name, not without pause or reflection, as offered in this violent fiction. The nameless Girl who grows up alone, abandoned, only to find communion with those who care not for her wellbeing, who taunt and tatter her broken soul, the families shaped by prostitution and lies, investing in gods and tinctures and remedies that do little to lay bare the truth, the child who escapes one hell to find another, a mother too soon, unable to see the truth of her relationships just as those around her are blind to her suffering. This is how Hurricane Season gathers its cast of characters, leaving you, the reader, to consider how hope might find its way through all this darkness, replete with profanity and sex, dehumanizing, inhumane, leaving you shaken, enraged, and, if you are anything like me, questioning — of why and how and again why and how the world can turn a blind eye.

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mmefish's review

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challenging dark sad medium-paced

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

4.0

I can’t rate this book higher than 4 stars because of how gross, vile, revolting, vulgar and disgustingly detailed it is. But I applaud the author for their artistic abilities.

Additional CW: graphic zoophilia.

P.S.: I expected a different kind of horror…

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valtbcht's review against another edition

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challenging dark medium-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

4.25

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lauradvb's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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bookishaddictions's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

Okay, so I absolutely HATED this one. I gave it an honest try, as I saw it had really good reviews on Goodreads. I found the book disturbingly disgusting. There are books that are weird yet good…. This was not it. This included everything considered taboo; it covered prostitution, drugs, bestiality, pedophilia, abortion, and much more. I can handle the vulgar language (do you know how many times they said “c*ck?), but this book gets downright foul. I wasn’t impressed by the writing style, and the story just seemed pointless to me. I did not find myself satisfied by the the whodunnit answers either, as it didn’t really come off as much of a mystery. If you have been waiting to read this one, I recommend just skipping it unless you are going to try it in the original language 🚫

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