Reviews tagging 'Blood'

Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

149 reviews

valmai's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

If you’re a fan of Ottessa Moshfegh or Melissa Broder, you’ve got to pick up Big Swiss! What a weird book. It’s not for the faint of heart, but it’s creepy, charming, funny, heartbreaking, and unsettling. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Blood, and Suicide attempt

growplantsreadbooks's review against another edition

challenging funny

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

5.0

This is now my gold standard for "disaster woman" books. So many bad decisions are made and I was on board for all of them. The descriptions of the house are incredible and I could write an essay on its symbolism. I laughed so hard so many times at things I would be embarrassed to describe because they wouldn't be funny at all out of context. 
I hate when books are described through other books, but this felt like the fucked up Aunt of Milk Fed and My Year of Rest and Relaxation. 
Highly recommend if you liked either! Please check the CWs though 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Drug use, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Stalking, and Injury/Injury detail

annamgoodman's review against another edition

dark emotional funny sad medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Infidelity, Mental illness, Suicide, and Blood

americattt's review against another edition

dark emotional funny reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

"You're the vain one, not me. I'm only checking to see if I exist. I feel like a patch of moving fog most of the time. When I look in the mirror, I'm always startled to see a head and limbs."

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Suicide, Violence, Blood, and Death of parent

Minor: Addiction

katbalts's review against another edition

funny medium-paced

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

4.0

Big Swiss is exactly everything I look for in a book. It's about strange people doing strange things. By the end of it I was left thinking, what on earth happened here? And its absolutely perfect.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Drug use, Eating disorder, and Blood

jaiari12's review against another edition

dark funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Infidelity, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Biphobia, Cursing, Drug use, Homophobia, and Sexual assault

Minor: Excrement

amysrrls's review against another edition

dark funny sad

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

3.5

Been thinking all day about my feelings about this book and it’s so hard to explain!!! On one hand I really enjoyed the funny, absurd moments, the questionable morals of the MC, and even related to the frank portrayals of unresolved trauma. But I don’t know, the ending didn’t give me enough closure to feel settled with the story - I almost feel like 50 more pages would have made the ending not feel so rushed. In ways this is similar to EITRWSBD by Emily Austin in terms of humor balanced w/ mental health issues but I just felt like this book was all over the place.

and to have the literal name of the book be big Swiss and then not even have closure with their relationship felt almost lazy to me - like I understand it was toxic and needed to end but like, did Greta really want to start living for herself and reach out and they become friends? Did Big Swiss’ husband even live???

ugh there was just so much unanswered, I can’t say I LOVED it. It did make me laugh out loud several times which is so rare when reading and so much of it was so brutally honest about life and human emotions it almost made me uncomfortable. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Blood, and Death of parent

discarded_dust_jacket's review against another edition

dark emotional funny medium-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? Yes

2.75

Believe it or not, my first impression of this book was actually really good. From the very first page I was genuinely shocked by how engaging I found the writing style.

I don’t normally find books funny, let alone so funny that I actually have to put them down so I can throw my head back and laugh, but that happened so many times reading this that my face started to hurt.

The content of the plot mixed with the format in which it’s presented—i.e., the sex therapy transcripts—gave reading it the sort of scandalous “guilty pleasure” quality of eavesdropping. So to that end, I thought it was incredibly well-executed.

That is, at least for the first half. The second half is where it lost my attention and failed to truly regain it. I’m not sure if it was an issue with pacing, or tone, or what, but I just felt like the story lost something roughly 60% of the way through.

Not to mention, every time the race or ethnicity of a non-white or non-American person is mentioned, it always seems to be as the punchline to an unspoken joke. Like, “ha ha, the Italian restaurant is run by Indian people, isn’t that funny?”

There’s also the casual use of insensitive language (like “Asperger’s” instead of “Autism”) and even downright offensive language (like gratuitous f- and r-slurs).

Overall, I’d say my main feeling in response to this book is disappointment, because it started so strongly. I had such high hopes.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Rape

booksarebrainfood's review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Blood

amiraonthewa11's review against another edition

dark emotional funny medium-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content and Violence

Moderate: Death, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Blood, Stalking, Suicide attempt, and Death of parent

Minor: Addiction