Reviews tagging 'Addiction'

Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh

18 reviews

emilyhunterr's review

dark funny reflective medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Addiction, Drug use, and Alcohol

Moderate: Misogyny

devynreadsnovels's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Blood, Body shaming, Classism, Death, Drug abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Infidelity, Misogyny, Murder, Pedophilia, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Violence, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Abortion, Addiction, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Sexism, Self harm, Vomit, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Sexual harassment, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, and Terminal illness

vivica's review

dark emotional reflective sad fast-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

3.0

I wanted to give this book 2 stars, but the very last story broke my heart to pieces, and it's for these emotions that I give this book 3 stars. However it if far from perfect - the author writes like a man who read a little bit too much of Bukowski's prose and let it get into his head. To say the least.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content and Ableism

Moderate: Body shaming, Blood, Addiction, Alcohol, Misogyny, Grief, Fatphobia, Eating disorder, Drug use, Death, Alcoholism, Adult/minor relationship, Toxic relationship, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, and Vomit

apersonfromflorida's review against another edition

dark reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Eating disorder, and Fatphobia

Moderate: Addiction, Misogyny, and Sexual content

Minor: Vomit

kia_y_k's review

challenging dark mysterious reflective fast-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Body shaming, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Suicidal thoughts, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Animal death, Blood, Toxic relationship, Sexual content, and Misogyny

casualvamp's review

dark funny mysterious fast-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal death, Drug use, Addiction, Alcohol, and Sexual content

bucklink's review

dark reflective sad medium-paced

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

2.0

most of the stories were bad. i think I only liked the two before the last one, but man it is very funny. i swear half my camera roll now is just the stupid things like monkey dreaming and toxic burger king pee.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Grief, Alcoholism, Mental illness, Addiction, Drug use, Sexual content, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Murder

c_serpent's review

dark medium-paced

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

2.0

 The voice is interesting.

There's too much sex in this book for me to pretend to have enjoyed it.

It felt like a collection of short stories I would have been forced to read in a college lit class, and I would come up with something to say in class, and maybe pretend to like a single story, but actually I would have hated it, and I would draw things in the margin of my notebook while the girl I sat next to talked about the sex in the book, and I would be uncomfortable.

Then I would write a three-paragraph comparative essay on three of the stories in the book and what the common theme was in these stories(displacement) and how the author achieved this (by placing every single character in some kind of a fugue state, and using first person to force you into their perspective, and then having the characters do things that are amoral, like not telling a girl she's having a baby or a miscarriage, or lying to random people, or sex with somebody that they have no business even interacting with).

And then I would get an A on the paper, and I would sell the book to Half Price Books and spend the money on a Snickers bar to get me through L203: Intro to Family Law.

One star has been awarded because of the interesting literary voice. Another has been awarded because I could see one of my favorite professors assigning this book, and I loved her, and I hope she's well.

Total score: 2/5 stars 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Sexual content, and Adult/minor relationship

Moderate: Addiction and Racial slurs

Minor: Self harm and Blood

_jennaalbright_'s review

challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-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

3.5

Moshfegh writes the grossest, most unappealing characters but I’m not complaining. I love crawling inside of her weirdo head via her writing.

*** As someone who tends to not LOVE short stories, this collection was very fun and engaging. It will most definitely make you very uncomfortable. ***

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Grief, Blood, Fatphobia, Mental illness, Suicide, Body horror, Death, Alcohol, Stalking, and Addiction

emory's review

challenging dark 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

2.25

When I was reading the second story in this collection and the protagonist started thinking about sexual acts involving swimming in sewage, and then further details the acts this character performs on a young sex worker, I was going to stop reading, despite my aversion to not finishing books. I wish I had. 

I was puzzled reading this about all the positive reviews I had seen of it. Every story seemed a pointless excuse for Moshfegh to describe something disgusting, insult a random fat side character, and call somebody r*tarded. A few of the later stories, such as Slumming, The Beach Boy, and A Better Place were (comparatively) charming and driven, but the abrupt endings in the latter of these two were discouraging.

The only saving grace I could find for these stories was that Moshfegh is clearly creative in thinking of vignettes of different shades of upsetting people. However, I don't feel as if her writing was strong enough to carry them. Each sentence was short and blunt. The simple sentences lent themselves to the subject matter I suppose, but it was not an artful or particularly nice reading experience. It read more like the begrudging English assignment of a super senior than that of a critically acclaimed author. Not to mention none of her characters were distinguishable from one another. All spoke with the same voice. The most discription anything received were fat characters that Moshfegh seemed to delight in calling disgusting and horrible. And anytime someone from a minority was mentioned, there was some weird aside that the narrator needed to have.

The idea of challenging what the purpose of fiction is and the role of a main character is an intriguing prospect, and this, along with the few stories that stood out to me as genuine, are the reason I'm giving this a higher rating than 0 or 1. But there's no skill or point behind it, to me, other than to shock and disgust. Most of these stories had nothing to say. To make something realistic in its unappetizing circumstances means nothing when you're doing the same trick over and over again. "It's so bad here, what if there were something better? Well, there's not." Cool! 

And unfortunately there's not even a single story that's about aliens. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Body shaming, Cursing, Drug use, Excrement, Mental illness, Racism, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Addiction, Eating disorder, Homophobia, Misogyny, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual content, Vomit, and Miscarriage

Moderate: Pregnancy, Grief, and Death

Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Physical abuse, Animal death, Antisemitism, and Sexual assault

Unbelievably terrible descriptions of fat people throughout for no reason. Additionally any time a main character meets a person who is not white or straight, they are very weird about it.