Reviews with content warning for Toxic relationship - Feed Them Silence

Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Feed Them Silence by Lee Mandelo

17 reviews

fresa_water's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad slow-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

2.0

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aeglaeca's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I genuinely don't know whether I can say that I liked this novella. "Like" isn't that right word, but it doesn't mean the book wasn't good. That said, it's visceral disturbing, extremely thought provoking, and pulls you in/fascinates you while being intensely unsettling and repellent at the same time, and I always admire and respect authors who can do that successfully. It's going to stick with me a long, long time. Very much worth the read, but approach with caution if you aren't in the mood for something that's going to hit you like a gut punch. 😅

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livlamentloathe's review against another edition

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dark reflective fast-paced

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

2.0

I previously read Mandelo's Summer Sons, and The Woods all Black. I enjoyed the former and loved the later, so I was surprised not to like this one at all.

Anything you gain from reading this story could be assumed from the start. The struggling relationship of Sean and her wife gets worse but comes to a resolution. Sean's team of scientists endanger one of the last pack of wolves, and Sean only begins to care about this possibility once neuro-linked. That's it. There is more depth to Sean's thought-process and storyline but if you have any assumptions about what will occur in this book, you're probably right.

Sean's wife believes Sean underwent a form of growth and change over the course of the book, but if that was a positive thing, then I massively misunderstood the book. I don't believe Sean learned anything she couldn't have gained through empathy and meaningful conversations with her wife. Much of their fighting could've been resolved if Sean had cared enough to argue her side. It felt like she was a ghost moving through things that happened to her. As if she wasn't the architect of her own failures. That said, Riya, Sean's wife, was just as culpable for decisions she made during their relationship. The corrosion of their marriage was toxic and two-sided.

Every book doesn't need positive change, but I don't think this book included change, period. I don't believe Sean learned anything.

Does the dog die?

Yes.

Even worse, she's killed by the venture capital funders when the project goes awry.

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lizardgod's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

3.0

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scifi_rat's review against another edition

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dark reflective tense fast-paced

Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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blacksphinx's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

2.5

First of all, this is NOT a horror novella and I'm not sure why it keeps winding up on lists of horror stories. It is a sci-fi novella focused around a failing marriage between two academics and a research project where our narrator gets to experience what it's like to be a wolf.

Despite not being horror, I think if you liked Our Wives Under The Sea you might like this. It's a different take on "failing sapphic marriage," if you can handle a narrator who is a self-centered racist dick.

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depmythmoon's review

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challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.0

This is a book where I struggled to find the meaning upon the end, so much so that I went to the acknowledgement page seeking answers. I’m not 100% sure I found them, but it at least gave me a satisfying enough answer to come to a conclusion.

I believe this book aims to parallel what COVID did to us as a society, how it “chemically altered” our brains… with a sci-fi wolfy take. Much like we all isolated due to the pandemic and developed our obsessions with particular media, hobbies, or entertainers, this novella shows how a neuroscientist, Sean, turned to an obsession with wolves in her times of loneliness. (She wasn’t really alone though; she was just actively choosing work over her wife, Riya, who was growing tired with her one-sided support.) I feel like this aimed to show the dramatized outcome of how these obsessions and parasocial relationships that some of us developed during our COVID isolation caused our real life relationships to suffer. Then again, I’m reaching at straws here because the ending still left me confused. Someone smarter than me would have to figure that one out. I don’t believe I was the intended audience, honestly.

Sean is a selfish character whose words say one thing while her actions say another. She just cannot take accountability for her actions to save her life. This woman supposedly loves her wife and wants to mend their relationship, but each time Riya holds out an olive branch, Sean finds some way to slap it back in her face. She’s so obsessed with feeling what her wolf subject, Kate, feels and the intimacy of their supposed “connection” that she neglects the very real connection to her wife. She even has a therapist telling her that her priorities aren’t in order, and while she says she understands she has to fix things, she goes right back to obsessing over work again. I enjoyed how the writer was able to portray Sean as selfish, all the while not having the protagonist be aware of that character flaw herself.

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