Reviews tagging 'Gore'

The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros

13 reviews

mmefish's review against another edition

dark informative mysterious medium-paced

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

4.5

I did not expect this book to turn out to be so well written, nuanced and intriguing. It touches on important topics, such as survivor guilt, generational trauma, grief, consent, being responsible for a sick relative, and more. I also appreciated the glossary at the end.

That's how life is. You're breathing, so you have to keep going, even when it doesn't feel like you're still alive.

They'll never welcome us into their whole cities, because ambition becomes something ugly when it has a Jewish face.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Murder, Antisemitism, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Gore, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Animal death, Cursing, Alcohol, and Violence

Minor: Rape, Animal cruelty, Child death, and Pedophilia

emily_mh's review

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

4.75

This was such a great read! The MC Alter was so dynamic, because as well as having to deal with possession and finding a serial killer, he has a rich inner world as the narrator. He’s trying to earn the money to bring his family over to the US from Romania, he is haunted by internalised homophobia and he is living in poverty in an antisemitic world and responding to that situation in his own way. His perspective really exposed the facade of the American Dream. 

Alter’s romance with Frankie was great. I love when an author writes an romance where the MC is oblivious to how much the LI is into them but the reader can clearly see it, and the romantic subplot here is exactly that. Because Alter and Frankie had already been through so much together before the events of this book, their connection was believable and their chemistry was good. I like how balanced their relationship was, with Frankie helping Alter with his mission, and Alter helping Frankie through his grief and trauma. 

It’s hard to comment on the predictability of the mystery as I am older than the target audience, but I found it to be engaging. I also don’t believe that the point of the mystery here was to be elusive and hard to solve, but to compound the social themes Polydoros was exploring. And boy did he EXPLORE. The narrative looks at the intersection of classism and antisemitism in the experiences of Alter, showing how doubly vulnerable it makes poor Jewish people to exploitation and violence. It displays the dissonance between having a grand international exhibition while people are living in poverty; the ludicrousness of the existence of the mega-wealthy when there are those with nothing. What is truly sickening is that these same issues and oppressions characterise today’s society too, like Polydoros was holding up a mirror to the present. I appreciated him foregrounding these issues for that reason, and also because it gives a more realistic depiction of Chicago and the US in general in 1893. 

Another fantastic element in this book was the atmosphere the author created. He conveyed the darkness and grit of Victorian Chicago effortlessly: the senseless violence and exploitation and the constant presence of danger. It was completely immersive and, like the mystery, engaging, so that even in slower-paced moments the book didn’t feel like it dragged at all, despite its 450+ pages. 

Rep: gay Jewish MC, gay Jewish LI, Jewish SCs

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Murder, Antisemitism, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, and Gore

Moderate: Physical abuse, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Cursing, Child abuse, Classism, Genocide, Excrement, Grief, Gun violence, Death of parent, Violence, Pedophilia, Rape, Animal death, and Animal cruelty

Minor: Bullying, Sexual content, Alcohol, Forced institutionalization, Suicidal thoughts, Self harm, Torture, Vomit, Drug use, Sexism, Misogyny, Police brutality, Medical content, Abandonment, Suicide, Sexual assault, and Ableism

Major: five uses of the antisemitic k-slur Moderate: missing loved one, separation from family, illness, theft, internalised homophobia Minor: drowning, fainting, gambling, blackmail, divorce, police corruption, imprisonment, capital punishment, gentrification

tangleroot_eli's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

H.H. Holmes/White City + dybbuk + queer Jewish immigrants + anarchist + right up my alley! Gorier than I usually go for but well worth handling the "ick factor."

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Antisemitism, Body horror, Murder, Gore, Pedophilia, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Racial slurs, Classism, Animal death, Homophobia, Gun violence, and Rape

Minor: Body shaming

spookily's review

adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Antisemitism, Blood, Death, Hate crime, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Religious bigotry, Violence, Homophobia, and Murder

Moderate: Alcohol, Vomit, Classism, Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual assault, and Terminal illness

Minor: Suicide, Bullying, Child death, Excrement, Misogyny, and Police brutality

novella42's review

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Child abuse, Homophobia, Child death, Hate crime, Grief, Blood, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Violence, Gun violence, Death, Antisemitism, Racism, Fire/Fire injury, and Sexual violence

jessthepiratess's review

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Rape, Pedophilia, Sexual assault

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, Death, Gore, Racism, Antisemitism, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, and Death of parent

Moderate: Racial slurs, Pedophilia, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Genocide, and Grief

Minor: Police brutality, Suicide, and Homophobia

lanid's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

3.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism and Body horror

Minor: Animal death, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Murder, Racism, Rape, and Religious bigotry

leahjanespeare's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

This debut really surprised me! I expected to like it, but I didn’t expect to feel as fully immersed as I did. It is set in Chicago during the Chicago World Fair but not focused on the fair itself for the most part / also around the time of the Cold Storage Fire. Young boys are disappearing and their bodies are showing up around the city—clearly murder is afoot. Alter is a gay, Jewish immigrant from Romania working hard to raise money to bring his mother and sisters over to America. As Alter’s friends start disappearing he gets caught up in the treachery and becomes in danger himself. 

I’ll warn you this book deals with HEAVY topics with mentions of child molestation, rape, and antisemitism and homophobia. But because of this integration of some ‘lost’ topics for the time period (or intentionally buried), I am so glad this book exists. I had no idea of the intense antisemitism of the era especially around immigrants. It’s horrifying and needs to be examined more, acknowledged - especially in this setting. There are so many books on the Chicago World Fair and the city in general at that time that focus on famous murders but (in my reading experience) have failed to integrate a lot of what marginalized people had to deal with at the same time.

I’m neither gay nor Jewish but my impression, as an outsider reading about these identities, is that they have been portrayed very well, based on the author’s own identity/history/research.

Really looking forward to more from this author.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism, Violence, and Homophobia

Moderate: Gore and Xenophobia

Minor: Sexual violence

eslsilver's review

adventurous challenging dark informative mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Excrement, Gore, Religious bigotry, Pedophilia, Genocide, Antisemitism, Murder, Violence, Child death, and Classism

Moderate: Suicide, Rape, and Animal death

kirani's review

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I don’t even know where to start on this review because this book is EVERYTHING! It’s beautifully written, it kept me on the edge of my seat, it made me laugh, it made me cry. It’s queer, it’s Jewish, it’s fantasy, it’s historical, and it’s in Chicago! I really don’t know how to explain it but I *saw* myself in the characters and I love when I can connect to characters, so I was immediately hooked. Also I will think about

“I love you!” “I love you, too, that’s why I have to let you go.”

for the rest of my life. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Chronic illness, Death of parent, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Racial slurs, Gun violence, Antisemitism, Classism, Murder, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, and Child death

Moderate: Misogyny, Homophobia, Gore, and Vomit

Minor: Pedophilia

The racial slurs tag is for antisemitic slurs. There is also a fair bit of internalized homophobia.