Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang

41 reviews

savvylit's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective 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

Natural Beauty is a novel with so much to love. It's an addictive page turner. It's deeply creepy and unsettling. It's culty as hell - in a believable slow burn, capitalist sort of way. It's about the dissonance between cultures as a first-generation American with Chinese immigrant parents. It's an examination of white, Western beauty standards. It's a tale of wlw obsession. It's an exploration of the innate sense of duty a daughter feels to her ailing parents. It's a glimpse into the pressures facing professional musicians. It's inherently anti-work, highlighting the ways that employers ask too much of employees facing precarity. It's a fucked up deep dive into our culture's obsession with physical "self-improvement."

I was so absolutely riveted by this novel. Each new horror that unfolded had me simultaneously surprised and disturbed. Natural Beauty is the perfect example of what I love about horror - it holds up a mirror to society's ills and forces us to look. This was an absolutely stunning debut from Ling Ling Huang and I eagerly anticipate her next work!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Misogyny, Sexual violence, Body horror, Animal cruelty, Gaslighting, Dysphoria, Death, Grief, Car accident, Medical content, Death of parent, and Medical trauma

rainbowarpaint's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Torture, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual violence, Body horror, Mental illness, Rape, and Racism

Moderate: Cannibalism

l0v3lu's review

dark emotional sad slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Body shaming, Violence, and Rape

Moderate: Body horror, Drug use, Cannibalism, and Child abuse

renicula's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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

3.25

I liked this. Disturbing in a way that cuts close to the quick. I did find the way the plot jumps and does a bit of telling-not-showing over long periods of the narrator’s employment jarring, even if it is a deliberate choice to convey her detachment. I didn’t mind that the main character is largely not a very active protagonist - it makes sense for the paralysis of grief she’s continually held in - but some of the events that step in to move the plot along are a bit… pat (at one point, critical information is revealed literally by a wayward cat jumping on a computer keyboard). That being said, it’s a quick read and viscerally fascinating.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Body horror

Moderate: Racism, Violence, Vomit, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Misogyny, Sexual content, Murder, and Sexual violence

Minor: Trafficking, Pregnancy, and Cannibalism

mlewis's review

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Body shaming, Body horror, Sexual violence, Fatphobia, and Sexual content

Moderate: Classism, Pregnancy, Racism, Sexual assault, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, Grief, Medical content, Misogyny, Drug use, Cannibalism, Chronic illness, and Death of parent

Minor: Domestic abuse, Infertility, Pedophilia, Bullying, Alcohol, Miscarriage, and Vomit

auudrey's review

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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual violence, Violence, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Death of parent, Sexual assault, and Classism

Minor: Racism and Pregnancy

iliveinletters's review

dark mysterious reflective 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

3.75

Cronenberg but for the girlies? This jumped the shark but I was along for the ride.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Medical trauma, Body horror, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Cannibalism

Minor: Animal cruelty, Racism, and Fatphobia

livlamentloathe's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Listened to most of this yesterday then finished while coloring moths in a meditation coloring book I own. It felt ironic to read the ending while choosing colors to create art.

This was a grotesque dissection of beauty, marginalization, and the dangers of the male gaze. It was more than that too, I can’t exactly summarize this book into a sentence. The ending felt akin to Carrie Narby’s “Indescribable,” in It Came From the Closet. The nonexistence of beauty, of perception, grants a form of freedom. There is a queerness to ugliness.

Natural Beauty captured the dangers of beauty well. It spoke to the “feminism” of beauty and the cage that surrounds conformity. Reading this was an experience I can’t truly describe in words. But I enjoyed this a great deal. Another example of how the greatest horror stems from reality.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Homophobia, Sexual assault, Animal cruelty, Death, Dysphoria, Excrement, Fatphobia, Grief, Medical content, Vomit, Fire/Fire injury, Animal death, Body horror, Classism, Confinement, Gore, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Racism, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual violence, Xenophobia, Terminal illness, and Stalking

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Death of parent, Sexual assault, Vomit, Terminal illness, and Sexual violence

Minor: Animal death, Cannibalism, Murder, Vomit, and Excrement

clara_mai's review

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Rape, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Body horror, Grief, Medical trauma, Xenophobia, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Cannibalism, Bullying, and Classism

jaiari12's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Loveable characters? No

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cannibalism, Blood, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Sexual content, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Pregnancy, Animal death, Grief, Body horror, Death of parent, Sexual harassment, Medical content, Racism, Rape, Animal cruelty, Drug use, Gore, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence