Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

Leech by Hiron Ennes

43 reviews

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

pantaruja's review against another edition

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Classism, Rape, Blood, Child death, Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Pregnancy, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Genocide, Suicide, Drug use, Dysphoria, Ableism, and Alcoholism

voxvenati's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

Unique and goddamn refreshing. I earnestly cannot say I’ve read something like this before, and it was so very welcome.

So many of the things I could say in favor of this book are spoilers, but even the premise alone is a treat. I can’t express how often I’m let down after a promising synopsis and excellent first chapter. This was not one of those times.

Every chapter builds. Tension. Drama. Intrigue. Every character was crisp and distinct. Every nugget of world building fascinated me. The dialect of the locals. The fables. The history. I am left wanting. Ravenous for more.

It’s dense. It can be clinical at times. I loved it because it fits the narrative. And it does start to change.

I have never had a book reveal the narrator’s pronouns/gender so deep into the story, only to have me second guessing all my previous assumptions.

I have never had such a seamless experience reading about LGBTQ+ characters where they just are. It isn’t clumsy or ham-fisted. It’s natural. It’s real. It was so fucking good.

And my dear dead gods, the slow reveal of the post-apocalypse, that the Institute and Pseudomycota are a part of that of that too? Exquisite.

The only reason this wasn’t a full 5 stars is because I never got that overwhelming sense of dread. Still, pretty damn close.

This is all said with the understanding this is a horror. There are some difficult topics. There is medical horror, body horror, and all sorts of other things. Read the content warnings if you have triggers. 

But if the premise piques your interest, and if you’re not too squeamish, this is a must read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Infidelity, Medical trauma, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Medical content, and Violence

Moderate: Confinement, Suicide, Rape, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Chronic illness, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, and Sexual assault

Minor: Eating disorder, Animal cruelty, and Cannibalism

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

chezler24's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative 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? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Wow! Hiron Ennes with an absolute knockout of a debut novel! This fed my love for Gothic science fiction and horror and left me wanting more. I'm excited to see what the author creates next. Here, they excellently craft this unsettling post-apocalyptic world which leaves just enough in question to disturb the reader while egging them along to learn more about its secrets. Ennes is able to tackle ideas surrounding identity, bodily autonomy, personal agency, and morality under the umbrella of this grotesque yet beautifully written story. 

(I should have finished this book a week ago, but headaches and a busy schedule halted me. If I wasn't hindered by those two things I would have absolutely torn through this book quicker than my timeline shows.)

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Pandemic/Epidemic and Toxic relationship

Minor: Alcohol, Dysphoria, Suicide, and Sexual harassment

gilroi's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

 I feel strange for not having more to say about this book, other than it's genuinely some of the best speculative fiction / fantasy / scifi / horror (pick one) I've read in years. It's a smooth, sleek little novel that knows exactly what it's doing and does it. While it's not perfect, I can't think of any flaw great enough to bring up in this review.

I think what I appreciate most about this novel is how much it trusts its readers, how confident it is with what it's trying to do. The twists aren't mindfucks, all reveals are telegraphed well in advance. Every change seems earned, all the dread is meaningful, and in the last sliver of the novel it goes from genre to literary, elegantly straddling both qualifiers to say something interesting, detailed, new, and worthwhile about identity, colonialism, gender, and medicine.

I cannot recommend it enough if you like a story bright with darkness, full of intention, inventive prose, lush worldbuilding, and smart narration. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Medical content, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Blood, Body horror, Murder, Pregnancy, Classism, Animal cruelty, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Child abuse, Racism, Cursing, Death, Grief, Vomit, Emotional abuse, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Rape, Suicide, Colonisation, Sexual assault, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Dysphoria, War, Miscarriage, Suicide attempt, and Terminal illness

nsaphra's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Why isn’t everyone talking about this book?? I’m obsessed, this book is sickening. It’s a gothic horror narrated by a HIVEMIND that controls every doctor in the world. It has all my favorite horror elements:
- body horror
- philosophical “what is the self” horror
- medical paranoia (who’s infected? Every detail feels like foreshadowing)
- unsettling nonhuman perspective

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Rape, Pandemic/Epidemic, Medical content, Infertility, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Pregnancy, Sexual assault, Pedophilia, Police brutality, Physical abuse, Medical trauma, Kidnapping, Violence, Death, Suicide, Body horror, and Chronic illness

vellumveela's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

Characterization felt a bit forced. Very atmospheric, but I felt still like much more could have been done there. Plot wasn't as deeply weird as I'd hoped it would be, which isn't to say it isn't weird as hell. But you know, if you're going to go there, and you're working with an interesting setting and cast of characters, you might as well all in, yknow?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Terminal illness, Sexual violence, Pregnancy, Classism, Infertility, Misogyny, Pandemic/Epidemic, Miscarriage, Animal cruelty, Death, Medical content, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Child death, Misogyny, and Ableism

Minor: Abandonment, Suicide, Trafficking, Fire/Fire injury, and Drug use

harpybuns'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

5.0

This book answers the question, what if Tamsyn Muir wrote a gothic horror novel set in a post-apocalyptic society as told by a hivemind symbiote? It's gross, it's cryptic, it's heartbreaking. I fucking loved it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Blood, Body horror, Medical content, Child death, Child abuse, Death, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual assault, Violence, Alcohol, Emotional abuse, and Infertility

Minor: Animal cruelty, Grief, Vomit, and Gun violence

s_teichman's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

This book was worth reading- it does very interesting things with the self and the first-person narrative and brings up some great points for contemplation- but it is not an easy book to read. Please mind the content warnings and brace yourself to be disturbed by at least one thing in this book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Medical content

Moderate: Rape, Child abuse, and Sexual assault

Minor: Suicide and Miscarriage