Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

Leech by Hiron Ennes

54 reviews

hmstaab's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Loveable characters? No

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Gore, Body horror, Medical trauma, Medical content, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Miscarriage, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Emotional abuse, Pandemic/Epidemic, Pregnancy, Sexual violence, Murder, and Suicide

Minor: Physical abuse, Excrement, Infertility, Miscarriage, Colonisation, Death, and Rape

fionamclary's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-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

4.75

This book has one of the most fascinating concepts I've ever encountered. I spent the first chapter so confused about what was going on, and then the next chapter cleared it all up and I was floored, and so excited to see how the premise would develop. It did not disappoint. Leech is a clever, fierce, and disturbing exploration of the ways in which people have their bodily autonomy taken from them and they ways in which they take it back. It also raises the question of to what degree our bodies are truly our own.

I often struggle with stand-alone SFF because I find that there is not enough room for the requisite world-building, but Hiron Ennes populated this book with numerous small lines that fit seamlessly into the narrative and yet did wonders to flesh out the world.

I did find that the pacing changed rather suddenly about 2/3 of the way through, from a contemplative dread punctuated by brief bursts of action, to suddenly everything kicking off, with revelations and major plot developments happening left and right. This sharp change is my only real quibble with the book.

Bonus: This book has a nonspeaking major character who is never portrayed as needing to be "fixed." There's also just casually a trans old man side character.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Medical content, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Adult/minor relationship, Ableism, Body horror, Fire/Fire injury, and Rape

Minor: Suicide, Gore, and Miscarriage

eb2701's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

While I think this is a very well conceived and well executed book, I found myself disappointed in what it chose to focus on. While it promised to be a complex exploration of identity and bodily autonomy, I found it to be quite cut and dry and even a bit heavy handed with its moral messaging about autonomy. 

while yes, obviously taking people’s bodies is bad, the Institute makes the point that it has to survive too, and needs human hosts to sustain itself. Is it evil to do what you have to to survive? Parasites are just fulfilling their ecological niche. And the book dismisses this question out of hand and doesn’t pick it up again. I would have been much more interested in grappling with that dilemma than so quickly concluding that no, parasitic lifeforms do not deserve to survive under any circumstances. Similarly, when Simone's personality began to assert itself, I found that I would have much rather been spending more time with the doctor in the second half of the book than having to get to know an entirely new protagonist that I found less interesting than sitting with the uneasy state of being one semi-autonomous disposable body in a collective.

 

That said, the prose is excellent and the structure of the book is very strong. I really enjoyed the throughlines of folklore and supernatural imagery, and the subtextual richness of parasitism as metaphor, parallelism both class oppression and the insidious nature of sexual abuse. The overall gothic framework functions perfectly, and the body horror is great. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Medical content, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual assault, Body horror, Death, and Murder

oriana095's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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? Yes

3.5

This was an interesting read. It was definitely the kind of book I had to sit down and really focus on what was happening at first to understand what was going on. Once the story was kind of set it was an easier time to get into the story. The development you see with the main character is great. As they go from being one with the Institute to being one with themself you want to keep reading to see what else will happen. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Body horror, and Medical content

Moderate: Child death

Minor: Death, Sexual assault, Adult/minor relationship, Suicide, Rape, Physical abuse, and Murder

takarakei's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

I am not sure how to rate this book. This was really far outside of anything I typically read, and I'm leaning towards a general "this book was not a book for me, but someone else out there would love this book!" I get the sense that it was doing some really unique things probably also for people who read more similar-type of books. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Medical content, and Gore

Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, Physical abuse, and Medical trauma

justinecm's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Gore, Miscarriage, Murder, Violence, Blood, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Body horror, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Gun violence, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Alcoholism, Suicide, Genocide, and Alcohol

velvet_young's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse and Sexual assault

Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic, Miscarriage, Suicide, Pregnancy, Vomit, Classism, Gun violence, Misogyny, Fire/Fire injury, and Drug use

purplekat's review against another edition

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Gore, and Rape

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, and Physical abuse

Minor: Pregnancy and Miscarriage

uncreativeoops's review against another edition

The worldbuilding was fascinating, but I just couldn't deal with the characters making one stupid choice after another. Some of them were also comically evil or unbelievably cliché.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Classism, Gore, Violence, Alcoholism, Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, Terminal illness, Body horror, Death, Addiction, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Pandemic/Epidemic, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Suicide

nexusgoblin's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

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

4.0

So I have a pretty intense fear of parasites and felt pretty nauseated at the idea of this one, but it hooked me so fast and the only issues I had were the mentions of the very real parasites that popped up occasionally. (3x speed is great for blowing right by the horror-induced panic bc the plot dangles keys in front of me)

It's such a weird story but I absolutely LOVE the idea and the gothic horror style really pushed it to where it needed to be. The dread and intensity were just *chef's kiss*

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Violence, Death, Pregnancy, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Sexual assault and Miscarriage