Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Cows by Matthew Stokoe

26 reviews

ballepai14's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Fatphobia, Gore, Toxic relationship, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Miscarriage, Rape, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Vomit, Abortion, Pregnancy, and Toxic friendship

akeila91's review against another edition

dark fast-paced

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

3.0

The good points of this book is the author is clearly an amazing writer, the book is so well written. The main reason I finished this book was because of how well written it was. It delivers what it says it’s going to. It makes you uncomfortable, anything “dark” you think you’ve read before it completely obliterates. 

The bad points is I think the story and character development fell short for me. I didn’t feel connected to any of the characters, bar a marginal pang of sympathy for his torturous life. But that didn’t grip me enough to become emotionally invested. The only character I felt any kind of draw to was dog. I feel like had the gore and disgust been turned down just a touch and the story and characters developed a little further, this could have been a 5 star read for me. But I understand what the author was trying to do. Anyone wanting to read please heed the TW’s as there is some very serious shit in this book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

dromedaryreader's review against another edition

challenging dark fast-paced

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

4.0

As disgusting as promised. Hated reading every minute but couldn't look away for a second. Disappointed that I might never find another book that does quite what this one does.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Medical trauma, Abortion, and Murder

Minor: Fatphobia and Incest

straple's review against another edition

dark fast-paced

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

2.5

This book sets out to be depraved and disgusting and it definitely does that. Not really any development, and was bad enough I had to step away from the book to gag multiple times. Not for the faint of heart!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Racial slurs, Rape, Self harm, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, and Abortion

Beastiality

fancyskeletons's review

challenging dark slow-paced

4.0

Oh boy.

How does one even rate something like this? I can't rate it in a scale of how much I enjoyed it because, well. I can't say I had a good time. I had A time, for sure. I had to put down my kindle from time to time because I was gaging, do with that what you will. 

This book is disgusting, vile, ugly and shocking. That's what it set out to do, and it was sucessful in its endeavour to disturb, and that's the basis of my rating. Consider me disturbed. 

At its core, Steven is a deeply disfunctional individual in the middle of a deeply disfunctional environment. The world of Cows is one of extremes. Nothing is left in mild terms. 

And it'll haunt me for a very long time.

Whoever recommended this one in the Reddit post about disturbing books, you were right and also fuck you. 

TW: murder; coprophagia; coprophilia; blood; bestiality; rape; grossness in general; animal cruelty; animal death; very explicit sex scenes; gore; violence; torture; abortion (by extreme measures); toxic relationships; domestic abuse.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Excrement, Vomit, Abortion, and Murder

Moderate: Cannibalism

connellplease's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Cursing, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, and Vomit