Reviews tagging 'Vomit'

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

11 reviews

theunfinishedbookshelf's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Car accident, Domestic abuse, Death, Sexual content, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Drug use, Animal death, Alcohol, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Death of parent, Violence, Pregnancy, Vomit, Fatphobia, and Ableism

squintyfarmer's review

challenging dark reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Grief, and Homophobia

Moderate: Sexual assault, Car accident, Murder, Sexual violence, Alcohol, Child abuse, Classism, and Death

Minor: Pedophilia and Vomit

franceselsie's review against another edition

dark emotional funny lighthearted mysterious reflective sad tense 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Gun violence, Death, Sexual content, and Vomit

Moderate: Drug use, Car accident, Toxic relationship, Dementia, Stalking, and Pedophilia

misscaitie's review

challenging dark slow-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

1.5

Barely finished it. 600 pages of misery

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Car accident, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Grief, Homophobia, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Physical abuse, and Bullying

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Alcoholism, Biphobia, Infidelity, Cursing, Stalking, Death, and Dementia

Minor: Gaslighting, Gun violence, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Death of parent, Murder, Violence, Addiction, and Biphobia

gvstyris's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective tense 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

5.0

So many of the bad things that happen in the world come from people pretending to be something they’re not. 

The Bee Sting depicts a family on the brink of collapse, its four members incapable of emotional vulnerability and ravaged by years of shame and trauma. It is devastating how little the POV characters know about one-another, especially the married couple, Dickie and Imelda.

The consideration of these four perspectives is where much of The Bee Sting's genius lies. Cass and PJ's two-dimensional perception of their parents' beliefs and ambitions, for example, is challenged as soon as we reach Imelda's first chapter. I was surprised by how convincingly Murray writes each character, portraying both women and younger voices with sensitivity and understanding. Each perspective adds something to the overall narrative, and I particularly enjoyed delving into Dickie's psyche.

Murray's prose also plays an important role in this novel's success. Imelda's chapters are written without punctuation, offering the reader a stream-of-consciousness that seems to mirror her anxiety and disorientation with her life's trajectory. That being said, I did listen to the audiobook and would recommend it for a more seamless reading experience -- a couple of Murray's stylistic choices would likely have bugged me without it. I also loved how each section decreases in length as the novel progresses, slowly building the tension as it becomes clearer and clearer that the Barnes' family is irreparably damaged. Similarly, the symbolism here is beautiful: the squirrels, Imelda's fairytales, the bee sting itself. 

Given that this book is a 650 page marathon, it delves into too many other themes to summarise here. The discussion around climate anxiety and human destruction also stuck with me, as well as the religious guilt that underpins much of Dickie's (and Imelda's, I suppose) struggle. I will be thinking about the ending for a long time, but am definitely a believer that

the novel's opening lines foreshadow its conclusion. There is something suitably tragic about the catharsis of Dickie committing suicide after unintentionally shooting the two children.

On a pettier note, though, I was slightly tempted to take half a star off because

the names of the two gay men are Dickie and Willie :sob:

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Homophobia, Grief, and Rape

Moderate: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Misogyny, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Animal death, Dementia, and Alcohol

Minor: Car accident, Vomit, and Lesbophobia

nicolaparty's review against another edition

dark reflective sad 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Car accident, Grief, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Homophobia, Pedophilia, Pregnancy, Death, Death of parent, Violence, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic friendship, Bullying, and Animal death

Moderate: Classism, Outing, and Police brutality

Minor: Excrement, Rape, Terminal illness, Vomit, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, and Drug use

lipliplip's review

dark emotional mysterious 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, Car accident, Death, Alcoholism, Addiction, Vomit, Toxic friendship, Animal cruelty, and Animal death

Moderate: Sexism, Adult/minor relationship, Pregnancy, and Outing

katha_'s review against another edition

challenging dark slow-paced

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

4.0

I loved, how vividly the characters were drawn, how I could relate to them even though i didn't relally like any one of them. The story combines so many themes of growing up, surviving hardships, sexuality, love and you can feel how carefully the story was constructed. It is fascinating how cose and distant a family can be at the same time.
At the same time, getting through the book was hard work: Especially the style in Imelda's part, although fitting, was very hard to read. And the book is pretty long, and while I think I understand the role the family members play, I wonder whether one or two POVs could have been left out.

After getting through 600 pages, the ending is pretty unsatisfying tbh

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Violence, Car accident, and Death

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Excrement, Pregnancy, Animal death, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Drug use, Self harm, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Vomit, Bullying, Abortion, Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, Murder, Outing, and Rape

Minor: Dementia and Cancer

orla_h's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Car accident, Alcoholism, Death, and Grief

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Bullying, Adult/minor relationship, Toxic friendship, Homophobia, and Hate crime

Minor: Dementia, Violence, and Vomit

znvisser's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense 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

4.5

You know those romcoms where you can't help but shout: 'just communicate with each other!!'? Well, this is the family drama version of that. The Bee Sting follows four family members into each of their owns destruction. Despite starting out with a lot of teenage girl drama, this captured me immediately. For one because I’ve once been a teenage girl with a friend like Elaine - so I immediately hated her guts (in my case tho, I was 5 years younger and there was no crush involved); but secondly, it's the writing that drew me in, and while I usually get annoyed easily by authors skipping quotation marks it took me a while to even notice it here (although it was almost too challenging in the Imelda chapters that just threw all (!) punctuation overboard). I loved looking into the heads of these messy, self-absorbed family members who each had their own problems they kept strictly to themselves. This book is full of messaging and coincidences and parallels, and even though at some point it almost loses track of its characters being too busy with very explicit climate change warnings, it finds its way back to the Barnes family, pushing them towards each other again. These characters are haunted by the past and the flashbacks from Imelda and Dickie are an integral part of their story, if only because it provided insight into how this train wreck of a family was doomed already a generation before them. Because gosh, they were doomed, but if they would have actually talked to each other every once in a while none of them did have to be so terribly lonely throughout it all.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Abandonment, Blood, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Grief, Homophobia, Police brutality, Rape, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Drug use, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Car accident, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Pregnancy, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Cancer, Gun violence, and War