Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang

21 reviews

jaymebeetus's review

dark mysterious reflective sad 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? No

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Fire/Fire injury, Death, Medical trauma, Classism, Sexual assault, Death of parent, Body horror, Trafficking, Grief, and Racism

Moderate: Murder

Minor: Bullying, Drug use, Car accident, Cannibalism, and Dysphoria

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

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

malsbang's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Physical abuse, Murder, Blood, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Cannibalism

kristynpittman's review

dark tense

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

This book really devolved into madness in a way I was not expecting.
Unhinged lit-fic girlies that love Goop & Poosh this one’s for you.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore

Moderate: Racism and Sexual assault

Minor: Car accident, Medical content, Body shaming, Death, and Murder

simplyammee's review against another edition

dark reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Hate crime, Racism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Body horror, Body shaming, Car accident, Drug use, Medical content, Medical trauma, Sexual assault, and Vomit

Moderate: Blood, Death of parent, Rape, Kidnapping, Pregnancy, and Murder

chris_reads's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective sad 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

3.5

The most insidiously disturbing book I've read to date. Good writing and themes of class, consumerism, immigration, sexual exploitation and beauty standards for women. Characters were sympathetic but passive and not very likeable. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Medical trauma, Rape, Body horror, Classism, Stalking, and Bullying

Moderate: Sexism, Sexual assault, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Medical content, Dysphoria, Toxic friendship, Drug use, and Eating disorder

Minor: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Car accident, Murder, Racism, and Vomit

sarahholliday's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

2.75

Like other reviewers, I think the premise of Natural Beauty is brilliant, but the execution is lacking. The book starts off with somewhat awkward pacing and so-minimalist-as-to-be-problematic descriptions of what's happening, and those problems only increase as the story progresses.

Typically, if a story is vague in terms of plots you at least get deep character studies, but that's not the case here. I kept having to flip backwards to remind myself who characters were—they all sort of blended together because no one had much of a personality to begin with.

The final few chapters of the book are expected to do way too much of the heavy lifting, trying to explain (almost fully) what we've only gotten glimpses of for the first 200 pages. We finally get some self reflection on the part of "Anna," something that might have helped make her complete lack of agency throughout the story easier to understand.

Overall, I was left with the frustrating feeling that a lot of really fascinating and horrific things were happening, but we just never really got to see them. Having read interviews with Ling Ling Huang, it's obvious that she had a clear vision of what she wanted the story to accomplish. Unfortunately, clumsy execution (that should have been better shaped by an editor) keeps readers from actually being able to engage with the issues—wellness, beauty, power, racism—with any sort of nuance.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Physical abuse, Body horror, Body shaming, Blood, Grief, Medical content, Toxic relationship, Murder, and Rape

Moderate: Car accident, Animal cruelty, and Cannibalism

mermaidsherbet's review

dark emotional mysterious sad 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Gore, Violence, Gaslighting, Rape, Fire/Fire injury, and Sexual assault

Minor: Infertility, Murder, Pregnancy, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Animal death, Bullying, Cannibalism, Car accident, Toxic friendship, Xenophobia, Classism, Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Blood, Body shaming, Cultural appropriation, Death, Death of parent, Sexual content, Stalking, Drug use, Grief, Kidnapping, Medical content, Medical trauma, Suicide, and Toxic relationship

noshinbean's review

dark reflective 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? No

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Drug use, and Sexual assault

Minor: Ableism, Cannibalism, Car accident, Dementia, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Pregnancy, Sexism, and Sexual violence