Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk

22 reviews

veridae's review

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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salemander's review

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5.0

SUCH an interesting book wow. i wasn’t expecting such a deep look into the grief of having a sick parent and the ways you watch this person you’ve known so well all your life slowly disappear. alongside this intense look into terminal illness, you also have this incredible and unique look into immortality and the way trauma causes you to slowly lose your humanity. also sexy vampire lady killing people slays
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allymute's review

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adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-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? Yes

4.0

Thirst exquisitely builds its environment - Buenos Aires in the novel's two timelines is so rich and realized. Much of the novel's emotional conflict lies in women's morally questionable obstinance in a world that requires their obedience. The mingling of violence and sex is hubristic, fun, and nasty. I wish there were more of those scenes!

My main qualm with the structure of this novel is that the women meeting feels rushed. A little more time with them together would've been more satisfying. This is still an exciting, sexy, and sad novel. 
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lupitagonzalez's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • 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

I loved this! A Gothic vampire novel featuring queer women, set in Buenos Aires and spanning centuries. My only criticism is that the final part of the novel in which the two women meet unfolds very hastily and ends rather abruptly. I wish there would've been more development in their relationship, but maybe that was the author's intention? I would still highly recommend it! 
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softanimal's review

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dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

5.0

Best book I've read so far this year.
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30something_reads's review

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dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

 Death had come to inhabit my body. It was a possession, not a visit. 

I'm still trying to figure out my full feelings about the ending but overall, this was gorgeous. The narrative structure was really compelling- I could not stop reading!
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A sweeping journey from the Old World to modern day Buenos Aires, this story is told in two parts from two very different women. 

The first half of the narrative is told through the eyes of a centuries old vampire as we follow her journey from her violent conception and across the world to Buenos Aires for a new beginning. 

The second half is told through the eyes of a modern day woman in Buenos Aires as she navigates her career, motherhood, and the inevitable loss of her own mother to a terminal illness. 

Two seemingly unconnected stories slowly begin to intertwine in a haunting, obsessive tale about grief, female agency, and desire.
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All of the dark, gothic, sapphic vampire vibes that I was hoping to get out of AEoM- I got them here. 

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readingwithsierra's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes

4.5

This was the femme vampire story I have been waiting ages for. I really enjoyed this book and the author’s writing style, it felt very immersive and was super entertaining to read. 

This book is told from two timelines with two POVs, and each POV highlights the pain, loneliness and anger each woman felt. The two story lines do come together eventually and it was really fun to see how it would play out, especially as a reader knowing the background information from the first part of the book. 
I will say the tone shifted immensely between the two storylines and could have benefited from a dual storyline told alongside each other. Reading the first half of the book kind of set the tone that I would be reading a vampire novel about how she survived centuries as a monster, but then we get to the second half of the story that felt very anticlimactic and a little disjointed. Both women are dealing with massive amounts of grief and telling their story’s alongside each other could have built up the climax a bit more. 

Overall, I thought this was pretty good. I love vampires, I love lesbians, and I love unhinged women, what more could you want?

Thank you NetGalley and Dutton (Penguin Group) for this E-ARC in exchange for an honest review. 
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not_another_ana's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective sad medium-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

Es solo la carne la que conoce el horror; los huesos, cuando están limpios, bien podrían ser fósiles, pedazos de madera, objeto de curiosidad. Pero la carne es lo que me desvela estos días.

Hay una vampira suelta en la ciudad de Buenos Aires. Acecha de día y de noche, sedienta, en busca de su próxima víctima. A través de sus ojos podemos ver el desarrollo de esta ciudad desde el siglo XIX en adelante y lo pesado y solitario que es ser inmortal. En la otra mitad del libro una mujer argentina del siglo XXI se pasea por el cementerio de la Recoleta y entra en contacto con este ser sobrenatural.

He visto otras reseñas donde se critica la estructura de este libro y estoy 100% de acuerdo. La primera parte está dedicada solo a la vampiresa y su historia. El cómo, cuándo y por qué. Es además una novela histórica, traslandándonos a las calles de una Buenos Aires que apenas comenzaba y por un evento histórico importante como lo fue la epidemia de fiebre amarilla en 1871. Disfruté la narración pero la trama en sí no me pareció original, al menos en cuanto a ficción sobre vampiros. Ya hacia el final le agarré más cariño solo para que terminara esta historia y me aventaran al siglo XXI.

La segunda mitad ya transcurre en la actualidad y es contada por otro personaje. Esta parte es la más débil de la obra y creo que es porque le pone un freno a la trama anterior. Pasamos de una historia más emocionante, de una narradora sobrehumana, a un tema más terrenal y humano. En la segunda mitad esta nueva protagonista está lideando con la salud de su mamá y su futura muerte. La madre padece una enfermedad degenerativa que le está robando la movilidad y que pronto la llevará a la tumba. Es un drama más sutil, más interpersonal y emocional. Creo que por separado las dos historia me hubieran gustado más, una enfocada en los vampiros y otra en el duelo.

Eventualmente las dos mujeres se conocen pero ya para ese momento no estaba tan interesada en la conexión que compartian. Me pareció apresurado el final y nunca sentí que de verdad existiera algo entre las dos que las llevara a tomar las decisiones que nos presenta la narración.
Aunque entiendo el estado de ánimo y salud mental en el que se encontraba todavía no entiendo por qué la mujer del presente dejaría a su hijo de lado para volverse una vampira. No puedes pasar mitad del libro mostrándome lo mucho que ama a su hijo solo para que lo descarte a un lado por una persona a la que conoció por menos de dos días.
Terminé el libro y quedé sedienta. 
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herelieshenry's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

In the interest of full disclosure, this review is specifically regarding a DRC copy of the book from Net Galley, so while I imagine this eBook was pretty close to finalized, some details may have been changed between my copy and the official release.

I would recommend this book to people with an interest in fresh takes on the vampire novel or anyone with an interest in the Death Positivity movement. It has a lot of interesting perspectives on life, death, and the choice to live or die, and if someone isn’t squeamish to those discussions, I definitely think this is a book worth picking up. The strongest aspect at play is the author’s stellar use of themes and imagery. The weakest is, in my opinion, the abruptness of the ending. I think it ended at the perfect point in the story, but the scene itself could have used some added exposition for the sake of clarity. All that being said, I’m very curious to read more of the author’s work when translated in the future.

This book is incredibly thematically rich. Themes of grief, motherhood, the dynamic of parenting vs being parented, and the complexities of choice are strong in this novel, effortlessly woven into the narrative. The overarching plot is meticulously crafted. It’s very tight and, for the most part, tied up neatly with a bow at the end. The secondary narrative, wherein the Part II narrator is grappling with her mother’s terminal illness and the complex emotions alongside it, is well-incorporated into the story. The family dynamics in the second half of the novel were striking, and I did shed tears multiple times over the complicated “grieving a loved one while they’re still alive” aspect of the inverted mother-daughter dynamic where the parent, in illness and old age, has become the parented.

The writing style is candid and compelling, overall very reasonable and appropriate for the story being told. Grammar and syntax were tidy and unencumbered, while word choice was direct and potent. Pacing was incredibly linear and straightforward, making it a quick and easy read. The use of description was skillfully executed: sparse in some parts and lush in others, almost always elegant. Imagery and metaphor were rich and gothic, peppered effectively throughout the prose. Overall, the prose is clean and elegant, occasionally grotesque and blunt in what it shows you but beautiful in its morbidity.

The structure at hand is interesting; instead of alternating point of view chapter-by-chapter, the point of view character changes only in the second half of the novel. Part II does away with chapters entirely, instead having a linear day-to-day structure. I think this choice was fresh and suitable for the novel. Beyond the two protagonists, the cast isn’t delved deeply into (though the mother of the Part II narrator and her son, Santiago, are very richly characterized) beyond what is necessary for the narrators to tell their story. I think this is a good example of a book where the extended cast is not the main focus and where not delving too deeply into them is a more effective choice. I think getting into the weeds of developing minor characters in this particular work would have bogged the story down and felt tedious.
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illtakethenightshiftx's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I really wanted to enjoy this more, but it fell a bit flat for me. I loved the concept, the creepiness factor, and the tasteful gore. I read a *lot* of vampire fiction when I was a tween/teen and I liked how Thirst didn’t abide by all of the traditional rules of vampire lore. It felt like a fresh take on a classic in many respects.
I found the first person POV a bit limiting and it’s generally not my speed, but I completely understand why the author chose it. It keeps the story extremely intimate and it gets the reader into the characters’ heads. 
The first chunk of the book felt a lot slower than the second and it took me a while to be completely invested in the story. The final third was the best part, especially when everything finally came together. (No spoilers here, but it was really good!!)
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