Reviews with content warning for Body horror - Deathless

Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente

7 reviews

lanarkunas's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

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morganpearcy's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

This book is fantastic. It’s not going to be for everyone. The pace is medium and slows a bit in the middle but it’s worth it to continue reading to the end as it all fits together perfectly. There’s purpose to the changes in pace.

This book is lyrical prose at its finest. The writing is gorgeous. The characters unique. The retelling of Koschei the Deathless and intermixing the fallout of the Russian Revolution after Stallin. It’s brilliantly woven storytelling is hard to put down. I enjoyed every minute of this book and it’s in my top 25 favorites of all time. I also really liked this version of Baba Yaga. It combined some of her more horrific legends and made her loveable. For me. :)

This book takes a turn at the end that I wasn’t expecting but yet also somehow in the back of my mind was always suspecting. The ending makes you think and there’s a lot to unpack there. Honestly this book would have been perfect to add to the silibus for some of my Fantasy in Philosophy/Folktales in Philosophy in college and at the graduate level.

I *really* enjoyed how the book explored the relationship between pleasure and pain. I found the spice to be just right because of the different approach. The Kink was fantastic and surprising. None of it was graphic or smutty. I would even say that it was so interwoven in the story that sometimes I didn’t even realize what was happening till a few sentences after it was over. So for it being a big part of the characters’ lives as whole persons but not the focus of the book it was great!

I also enjoyed the comparison of marriage to battle. 😂 I really appreciated the way it explored non-monogomous sexual and romantic partnerships through a different lens, which I found thought provoking. It led to some interesting discussion with my own partner.

Additionally, the representation of life under Stalin was very realistic from what I remember studying in college. I’m pretty radicalized (and US politics are not, compared to the rest of the world). It was a good reminder that systems of socialism European humans have adopted before ain’t gonna cut it. We can’t prescribe everything, including fairness. So we need to use some imagination in how we rebuild the world to be human-centered and adopt more Indigenous systems rather than prescriptive systems that erase our humanity.

All in all it was a fantastic read that I found to be really deep on multiple levels, thought provoking, beautifully written and absolutely enjoyable from the first page to the last.

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kmacdo23's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.75

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lisa_m's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark informative mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot

3.5

I didn't know what to expect when I started reading this book and I still don't know what to think about it now that I have finished it.

It was a complicated book to read mostly because I didn't know anything about russian mythology. It was still very interesting to read and though I didn't always enjoy it understand it I am definitely glad I read it and pushed through the difficult parts. I'm still not quite sure what to think but it definitely taught me a lot.

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