Reviews tagging 'Forced institutionalization'

The Half Life of Valery K by Natasha Pulley

19 reviews

wheemsicott's review against another edition

dark sad tense slow-paced

2.5

When it comes to Pulley's books, I'm used to looking past the degree of cultural insensitivity she casually throws in the mix every time; I don't think she's capable of coming up with anything that won't elicit a "why is a british white woman writing about this" reaction from me and I've come to just let that stuff sit in the back of my brain while I go along for the ride. The Half Life of Valery K was no exception. I accepted she felt qualified to write about the Soviet Union in such excruciating detail and, while I disagree with her about whether she should, I still enjoyed the characters she crafted.

The plot dragged a bit and I was sad to see all speculative traces wiped out in the face of hard science, but I get it. It fit the story Pulley wanted to tell. What really lowered my rating and soured my general experience of this book to the point I can't think about it without feeling sick is the way it handled patriarchal violence. Pulley wanted so bad to analyze the ways in which men hurt women, but instead she wrote a novel about a male biochemist trying to shed light on the top-secret radiation study he's involved with. And she made the main "villain" (the term feels quite cheap here, but bear with me) a woman.

Already that undermines the goal; not because a woman is doing bad things, but because the protagonist is a guy and his love interest is also a guy. Not the most practical canvas to depict male tyranny. Pulley does try to weave in some social commentary from Valery's Feminist King point of view, and for the most part it works! I believe it! Until she feels the need to put the train sequence in there.

The train sequence is a terrifying, disturbing account of something so inhuman it pushes Valery to kill every single man involved. Good on him, but we first hear about it in a scene that's meant to solely make some ripples in the budding romance between him and his guy. It's all to make him even more sympathetic (as if we needed that--dude's a traumatized kitten) and amp up the tension. We could've done without. We could've done without, or used something else, and instead we get the rape and murder of many desperate young women and girls stuck on a train to the gulag. Now, of course I'm not saying you can't write about these things. You can, and you could argue Pulley does it masterfully by building a visceral crescendo to the act and then cutting right before it happens. But she writes the whole thing as fuel for her male main character. She tries so hard to criticize gendered violence, only to reproduce it on the text in a way that is potentially deeply triggering--just because she needs to make Valery even sadder. Just because she can have him say "almost all (cis) men are monsters ready to explode". What godawful fucking framing, to be frank.

Anyway. I am a fool and I only wanted to write a quick note about a book that clearly chose its subject matter wrong, but here's the full rant instead. I don't think The Half Life of Valery K is an unreadable mess, but it did make me feel gross.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Forced institutionalization, Medical trauma, Rape, Animal cruelty, and Police brutality

pvbobrien's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Violence, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Forced institutionalization, Homophobia, Infidelity, Medical content, Police brutality, Terminal illness, and Antisemitism

Minor: Sexual violence, Torture, Xenophobia, Gun violence, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Pregnancy, and Rape

breadwitchery's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Violence, Animal death, and Death

Moderate: Medical trauma, Confinement, Murder, Gun violence, Homophobia, Forced institutionalization, Sexism, Terminal illness, Torture, and Police brutality

Minor: Cursing, Racism, Ableism, War, Racial slurs, Antisemitism, Alcohol, Panic attacks/disorders, and Vomit

ninjamuse's review against another edition

emotional funny tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Police brutality, Violence, Forced institutionalization, and Confinement

Moderate: Medical content, Violence, Gaslighting, and Alcohol

Minor: Homophobia, Rape, and Sexism

bel017's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

Too horrifying for me (though I finished it), should have checked the content warnings first.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Violence, and Animal cruelty

Moderate: Death, Torture, Grief, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, War, Police brutality, Murder, Medical trauma, Terminal illness, Physical abuse, Homophobia, and Genocide

spacebornfew's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

On one hand, this book gave me exactly what I wanted, it follows a formula that just makes something in my heart clench. It was, as always with Natahsa Pulley novels, hauntingly beautiful, tragic and tender. With bonus octopus.  

However it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore how poorly her female characters are treated. You can't help but feel that they are plot devices purely there to move things along for the leading men. Considering the book explores sexism and gender, at some points in quite a heavy handed manner, it feels incredibly jarring to still not have women exist to have some purpose beyond window dressing. 

It's also very dark, at points a lot darker than her other novels which I had not entirely expected. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Cancer, Child death, and Death

Moderate: Animal death, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Torture, Animal cruelty, Genocide, Homophobia, Police brutality, Rape, Terminal illness, Miscarriage, and Physical abuse

Minor: Antisemitism, Panic attacks/disorders, War, and Xenophobia

ginger2d's review against another edition

emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Deportation, Terminal illness, and Sexism

Moderate: Violence

Minor: Rape, Panic attacks/disorders, Antisemitism, Torture, War, Transphobia, Genocide, and Forced institutionalization

roosereta's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

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

4.0

Comparant-lo amb els seus altres llibres, es nota que és un llibre més adult, tant per la temàtica com pel gènere elegit, ha abandonat la ciència ficció/fantasia històrica i s'ha limitat a la novel·la històrica. 

Com sempre, la història d'amor, que és la part central del llibre, brilla. Però per principis he de criticar-la. Elegir liar a un pres polític de l'estalinisme enviat a un gulag a Siberia amb un agent de la KGB... that was a choice, wasn't it? 

Al César lo que es del César, i li he de reconèixer a Natasha Pulley que ha aconseguit una cosa pràcticament impossible; que devore un llibre sobre la radiació nuclear i m'interessen un mínim les matèries de física/química (que ja és més del que poden dir els profes del meu institut). Estic gràtament sorpresa perquè el llibre mai em resultà dens ni avorrit, i mig m'ha enganyat per a llegir un thriller, que és un gènere que no em crida molt l'atenció. 

Les crítiques que li faig al llibre, i i la raó per la qual li lleve una estrella, és que el final no m'ha paregut que proporcionara una resolució satisfactòria, s'ha llevat a personatges inconvenients de damunt d'una forma massa descuidada. Bé, i que habitualment m'agraden els meus llibres amb menys (presumptes) violacions de la Convenció de Ginebra.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cancer, Forced institutionalization, Rape, Sexual violence, and Terminal illness

btrz7's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcohol, Antisemitism, Animal death, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Forced institutionalization, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Pregnancy, Rape, Religious bigotry, and Terminal illness