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sarah984'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
4.0
This book takes a bunch of gothic tropes (the opulent but crumbling manor haunted by past atrocities, the ailing patriarch grasping for control with his son and daughter-in-law squashed under his thumb, an outsider drawn into a terrible world they don't understand), drops them into a post apocalyptic future, and fills them to the brim with worms. I am not squeamish with descriptions usually but this one made me squirm a few times!
I really enjoyed this book's themes of identity and autonomy, and the use of language to denote the state of the main character is fantastic, however I dropped a star because I felt the ending was kind of weak and I don't like tropes that involve a race of people being genetically predisposed to certain knowledge and this winds up doing that a bit. Overall though, if you want something original and you've got a strong stomach I would heartily recommend it.
I really enjoyed this book's themes of identity and autonomy, and the use of language to denote the state of the main character is fantastic, however I dropped a star because I felt the ending was kind of weak and I don't like tropes that involve a race of people being genetically predisposed to certain knowledge and this winds up doing that a bit. Overall though, if you want something original and you've got a strong stomach I would heartily recommend it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, and Medical content
Moderate: Violence, Vomit, Blood, Child death, Colonisation, Confinement, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Gun violence, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Pregnancy, Racism, Sexual violence, Suicide, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Misogyny, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Terminal illness, Ableism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cannibalism, Child abuse, and Genocide
Parasite/bug/worm content Mind control Graphic birth sceneenchantressreads's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
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
“A corpse, especially a fresh one, is a fine gift for my laboratories.”
I usually prefer to read shorter books, but this is the rare exception that I wish the book was longer. At 336 pages, I felt that there was still so much unexplored that could have been fleshed out. Because of this, I’ve given Leech a moderate 3.5 star rating. Not bad, as I did enjoy the story, but I wanted so much more out of it.
A doctor who is part of the Interprovincial Medical Institute makes the journey to Chateau de Verdira to find out why one of its bodies has died. The doctors of the Institute are connected as part of a hive mind, but it seems this one has gone off on their own. The Institute’s bodies are sexless, nameless humanoids whose only job is to be doctors. When Doc gets to the chateau, however, they find that the doctor, who named himself Stanislas, has a mysterious fungus or pathogen growing in his eyeball. This caused him to take his own life.
There was so much to this novel, that it felt rushed. As soon as you got into one part of the story, it quickly moved to another part. The general plot was very interesting, and we all know I love a good microbe story, but it definitely felt lost. It was reminiscent of the gothic age, and having read What Moves the Dead recently, I had pretty high hopes. This wasn’t my favorite novel, but I still want to recommend it to anyone who loves fungus as much as I do, as well as a nice gothic story.
Thank you to Tordotcom and NetGalley for this advanced review copy. All opinions are my own.
CW for body horror, death, animal death, suicide, human experimentation, domestic violence, blood, graphic birth scene, animal cruelty, emotional abuse, death of a child, disease, and fire
I usually prefer to read shorter books, but this is the rare exception that I wish the book was longer. At 336 pages, I felt that there was still so much unexplored that could have been fleshed out. Because of this, I’ve given Leech a moderate 3.5 star rating. Not bad, as I did enjoy the story, but I wanted so much more out of it.
A doctor who is part of the Interprovincial Medical Institute makes the journey to Chateau de Verdira to find out why one of its bodies has died. The doctors of the Institute are connected as part of a hive mind, but it seems this one has gone off on their own. The Institute’s bodies are sexless, nameless humanoids whose only job is to be doctors. When Doc gets to the chateau, however, they find that the doctor, who named himself Stanislas, has a mysterious fungus or pathogen growing in his eyeball. This caused him to take his own life.
There was so much to this novel, that it felt rushed. As soon as you got into one part of the story, it quickly moved to another part. The general plot was very interesting, and we all know I love a good microbe story, but it definitely felt lost. It was reminiscent of the gothic age, and having read What Moves the Dead recently, I had pretty high hopes. This wasn’t my favorite novel, but I still want to recommend it to anyone who loves fungus as much as I do, as well as a nice gothic story.
Thank you to Tordotcom and NetGalley for this advanced review copy. All opinions are my own.
CW for body horror, death, animal death, suicide, human experimentation, domestic violence, blood, graphic birth scene, animal cruelty, emotional abuse, death of a child, disease, and fire
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Blood, Body horror, and Child death
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Animal death, Animal cruelty, and Domestic abuse
human experimentation, graphic birth scenelexi17d's review against another edition
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
What..? This book was such a wild ride right from the start all the way to the last page.
Leech is a dark sci-if following a doctor who travels to a remote town to research a mysterious illness that has killed the previous doctor of the town. I can’t say much more about the plot without spoiling anything, but trust me when I tell you this book had me on the edge of my seat the entire time.
The beginning of this book has a dense scientific prose which took me a little while to get used to, but once the technical terminology settled down, this book was such a tense and exciting read. As the debut novel of Hiron Ennes, consider me impressed.
I did feel as though the ending was a little too abrupt. It could have benefited from having an extra 20 or so pages to close the book out, and I still feel as though there are some questions that are left unanswered. Besides these critiques, this was an incredible debut novel and I cannot wait to read more novels by this author.
TWs included in review
Received an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Leech is a dark sci-if following a doctor who travels to a remote town to research a mysterious illness that has killed the previous doctor of the town. I can’t say much more about the plot without spoiling anything, but trust me when I tell you this book had me on the edge of my seat the entire time.
The beginning of this book has a dense scientific prose which took me a little while to get used to, but once the technical terminology settled down, this book was such a tense and exciting read. As the debut novel of Hiron Ennes, consider me impressed.
I did feel as though the ending was a little too abrupt. It could have benefited from having an extra 20 or so pages to close the book out, and I still feel as though there are some questions that are left unanswered. Besides these critiques, this was an incredible debut novel and I cannot wait to read more novels by this author.
TWs included in review
Received an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Xenophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Dysphoria, Animal death, Abortion, Homophobia, Death, Self harm, Pregnancy, Murder, Miscarriage, Medical trauma, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Infertility, Child death, Ableism, Gun violence, Gore, Blood, Body horror, and Violence
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