Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh

7 reviews

laurahartfield's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Forced institutionalization, Physical abuse, Violence, Vomit, Sexual violence, Body horror, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Death, Mental illness, Drug use, Gore, Suicide, Self harm, Animal death, Blood, and Fire/Fire injury

caroisreading's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective tense medium-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

The title alone had me interested in this book. It's right up my alley in terms of deranged female narrators taking us through an unsettling ride. 

The story shifts between Elodie's POV as a baker's wife, and her letters to her friend Violet. It starts plain and quite boring, unravels very slowly, and then drops the plot twist over a few pages in a nightmarish daze. 

The main theme is obsession, the need to live as someone else, and steal their life, their love, their intimacies. It's a heavy focus on masochistic, degrading fantasy, born from boredom, neglect, and Elodie's invisibility as a woman and sexual being. 

The writing is one long fever dream that gets more twisted and confusing as you go. It was hard for me to find footing, which is probably purposeful. Even the time period was hard for me to figure out. This kind of verbose, vague inner monologue writing style often loses me, but give it a try if you're into that, as well as really demented characters.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic, Gaslighting, Sexual assault, Blood, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Body horror, Infidelity, Torture, Physical abuse, and Sexual violence

aliciawithoutkeys's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence and Sexual content

jennikreads's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Mental illness

Moderate: Misogyny, Infidelity, Sexual violence, and Violence

Minor: Pregnancy

megantyler's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.5

The writing style of this book is beautiful; like it’s themes it is lustful, dark, cynical. This is definitely an implicit story, the story of the poisonings occur within the background nonchalantly, climaxing towards the end. It could be disappointing if you want an explicit, eerie tale of a town being poisoned which is what I initially expected, but I found myself unexpectedly entranced by the thoughts and desires of Elodie. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Sexual violence

madamelacy's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

The cursed bread almost seems quite peripheral until towards the end of the book. However, this is a gripping tale of a woman who becomes infatuated with a couple who move into the village. Disturbing, bizarre things start to happen and hilarity does not ensue. Highly recommend. Read trigger warnings though.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective medium-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

3.5

 Cursed Bread is set in a small village in France in the 1950. Elodie is the wife of the local baker and she’s very frustrated since her husband is obsessed with making the perfect loaf of bread and not at all interested in her. When the American ambassador and his glamorous wife Violet move into the village Elodie is soon fascinated with them and falls under their spell. Meanwhile strange and dark things start occurring in the village. This Women’s Prize longlisted book that was more of a miss than a hit for me. While I could appreciate its literary merits, the sometimes beautiful writing and imagery, this book is often described as a fever dream and I’m not the sort of reader who enjoys fever dreams. I knew the story was inspired by true events and the beginning of the book had me intrigued. The more the story progressed the darker and less easy to comprehend it became. It’s combination of desire, obsession, deceit, and violence plus the level of uncertainty about who to believe and what actually happened meant it didn’t align with my readerly tastes, but it will be perfect for other readers. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Sexual violence, and Toxic relationship