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directorpurry's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Kidnapping, Child abuse, Gun violence, Sexual assault, Suicide, Rape, Physical abuse, Vomit, Violence, Sexual violence, Confinement, and Sexual content
Moderate: Domestic abuse
Minor: War
jrpoole's review against another edition
5.0
Dysphoria is billed as an Appalachian gothic, and it delivers on that promise. It's a leathery little fever dream of a book, the kind that reads fast and leaves a mark.
Compton has a way of drawing the reader into some pretty dark places in a way that never seems gratuitous, and the overall effect is pulpy without being lurid. There's violence and ugliness here for sure, but the family dynamics surrounding Paul, the central character who finds his life falling apart as he deals with his father's death and a long-buried family secret, keep Dysphoria grounded and give it a soul.
Compton has a way of drawing the reader into some pretty dark places in a way that never seems gratuitous, and the overall effect is pulpy without being lurid. There's violence and ugliness here for sure, but the family dynamics surrounding Paul, the central character who finds his life falling apart as he deals with his father's death and a long-buried family secret, keep Dysphoria grounded and give it a soul.
mackenzi's review
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Not sure about this one! At first it felt a little slow, then it picked up and definitely reeled me in. I was super interested to see where the story went, and I wasn't expecting that. Non-genre fiction isn't my usual thing, I read literary & contemporary fiction so rarely, and I was pleased that this one set up such interesting characters who begged your ear; please listen to our story, they plead. Not to mention the writing really was evocative. There are many reviews praising the author's writing style and I have to agree it's easy to gulp down. Thoughtfully written, well-plotted in pleasant prose, it paints a dark, sad picture of rural town life that feels all too real.
I did find the end to be kind of extreme. It felt like it was pushing itself into horror fiction, and it felt... I dunno, unreal maybe. Like, it got bad- the bad we were expecting, and then even worse than that. The author really does a good job of writing a splinteringly painful scene. Up until a certain point it felt like it was solidly in this world. But then the bad things just kept escalating, in excruciating detail, and it felt... well, it kinda felt like a bad horror video game. Where the writing is half-assed and they're gonna just kick it up to eleven on shock value, add a rape-and-torture backstory so you can never feel bad shooting dozens of bullets into the bad guys. To make the game feel "mature". It's possibly just that I've been exposed to too much of this "edgy" schlock writing, but it definitely made a few aspects of this book feel cheap to me.
On one hand this book works for it, it tries to earn this heavy stuff by doing the fieldwork no game has done (so far at least). It gives a lot of humanity to Paul, it lays out his past and present and how hard he's been trying and struggling, and how hard his dad has been trying and struggling. How hard everyone in this book has been struggling. And it felt honest and real. Dysphoria tries to pay its due in nuance and sensitivity for topics of child rape and the chain of abuse through generations. It has a subtlety of understanding here, I absolutely give it that. And you expect a sucker punch, you see the book winding up to take the hit for a while. So I'm not feeling like Mr. Compton is a bad writer. It just felt a little over the top- this particular set of characters who played the "villain" role, they felt like they were from a whole different book. And the end-end, with the guy who'd been abused previously, sitting in a dress, jerking off. After all of the nuance and subtlety and human element, that is such cartoonish and underdeveloped imagery. That's just tacky, that's a villain who's been done over and over and it's a trope that at this point seems shallow for all the weight and buildup this book sets up.
It's just not great. So in the end I can't say this book was as impactful as I wanted it to be. In the end it looped around to feeling like an excess that didn't match the tone of the rest of the book, as good as that buildup was. Maybe it was just expectations going in, I dunno. I took a gamble and it didn't pay off the way I wanted, but at least I branched out and found something new and different from my usual to read. In that sense, this was a successful experiment.
I did find the end to be kind of extreme. It felt like it was pushing itself into horror fiction, and it felt... I dunno, unreal maybe. Like, it got bad- the bad we were expecting, and then even worse than that. The author really does a good job of writing a splinteringly painful scene. Up until a certain point it felt like it was solidly in this world. But then the bad things just kept escalating, in excruciating detail, and it felt... well, it kinda felt like a bad horror video game. Where the writing is half-assed and they're gonna just kick it up to eleven on shock value, add a rape-and-torture backstory so you can never feel bad shooting dozens of bullets into the bad guys. To make the game feel "mature". It's possibly just that I've been exposed to too much of this "edgy" schlock writing, but it definitely made a few aspects of this book feel cheap to me.
On one hand this book works for it, it tries to earn this heavy stuff by doing the fieldwork no game has done (so far at least). It gives a lot of humanity to Paul, it lays out his past and present and how hard he's been trying and struggling, and how hard his dad has been trying and struggling. How hard everyone in this book has been struggling. And it felt honest and real. Dysphoria tries to pay its due in nuance and sensitivity for topics of child rape and the chain of abuse through generations. It has a subtlety of understanding here, I absolutely give it that. And you expect a sucker punch, you see the book winding up to take the hit for a while. So I'm not feeling like Mr. Compton is a bad writer. It just felt a little over the top- this particular set of characters who played the "villain" role, they felt like they were from a whole different book. And the end-end, with the guy who'd been abused previously, sitting in a dress, jerking off. After all of the nuance and subtlety and human element, that is such cartoonish and underdeveloped imagery. That's just tacky, that's a villain who's been done over and over and it's a trope that at this point seems shallow for all the weight and buildup this book sets up.
It's just not great. So in the end I can't say this book was as impactful as I wanted it to be. In the end it looped around to feeling like an excess that didn't match the tone of the rest of the book, as good as that buildup was. Maybe it was just expectations going in, I dunno. I took a gamble and it didn't pay off the way I wanted, but at least I branched out and found something new and different from my usual to read. In that sense, this was a successful experiment.
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