Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Das Haus der unfassbar Schönen by Joseph Cassara, Stephan Kleiner

4 reviews

waytoomanybooks's review against another edition

I was assigned this book in my Contemporary Queer Literature class, and I and several of my classmates told our professor that we couldn't and wouldn't finish reading it. The book steps out of "gritty realism" and veers into "tragedy, trauma, and grief porn" a la A Little Life. Every character in the novel is graphically raped multiple times. Every underage character at one point or another enters into a "relationship" with an adult. Every character at one point or another becomes a prostitute. There is even a character that had a mummified corpse in their closet. This is not an exaggeration. I'm not putting this behind spoiler tags because I think everyone should know about this before reading it. I wish I had known! Upon realizing that we weren't going to finish the book, our professor said that if we found the first third to be horrific, then we certainly shouldn't finish the book because it "gets worse."

Grief, loss, trauma, death, rape, etc. are unfortunate parts of life, but the author seems to take almost ghoulish delight in hurting characters who are based on real people. Don't read this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Addiction, Alcoholism, Blood, Chronic illness, Classism, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Drug use, Dysphoria, Eating disorder, Gaslighting, Gore, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Lesbophobia, Misogyny, Murder, Outing, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Transphobia, Abandonment, Ableism, Alcohol, Child abuse, Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Excrement, Grief, Homophobia, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Pandemic/Epidemic, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Vomit

maurapartridge's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Homophobia, Terminal illness, Transphobia, Hate crime, and Grief

Moderate: Suicide, Sexual violence, Racism, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Sexual harassment, Addiction, Outing, Murder, Rape, Physical abuse, Drug use, and Drug abuse

Minor: Dementia, Incest, Sexual assault, Vomit, and Physical abuse

dizzymissliz's review against another edition

dark emotional sad slow-paced

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

3.75

What an incredibly depressing book. Even though gay culture has so many highs and a beautiful, rich, history, it's easy to forget how dark and lonely it was for our community in the 1980's. This book describes this period in explicit detail. Even though it was hard to read and extremely sad, I think it's important to reflect on this time period. This book focused more on the relationships between trans/gay entertainers and their found family rather than ball culture, but I think that that's what made it special. There really is a familial love between these characters, heavily influenced by and named after the people in Paris is Burning. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Hate crime, Drug use, Racism, Transphobia, Homophobia, Rape, Murder, Suicide, and Child abuse

Minor: Incest

caseythereader's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Dysphoria, Grief, Medical content, Rape, Transphobia, Cursing, Drug use, Infidelity, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Violence, Vomit, Abandonment, Death, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Injury/Injury detail, Racial slurs, Addiction, Alcohol, Blood, Child abuse, Deadnaming, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, and Terminal illness