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jmcampbell57's review
dark
emotional
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? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Vomit, Mental illness, Drug use, Body horror, Suicide, and Death
Moderate: Sexual assault, Alcohol, and Sexual content
Minor: Blood and Alcoholism
jomannisto's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
If you’re the type who NEEDS likeable protagonists, this is probably not the book for you. Others have said it is satirical/dryly funny, while I found it unrelentingly pessimistic to the point where I put it down for a week to recover from the characters whinging about their self hatred. I did however, enjoy the mystery/ghost/fantasy elements. I wish the interaction in the final chapters between Winnie and Be Li was a little longer since that was the thing that really helped to recover the pace. The writing is really vivid when it comes to conjuring settings.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Mental illness, and Confinement
Moderate: Vomit, Sexual content, Alcohol, and Drug use
jussery's review
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I really enjoyed reading it, it was depressing but also extremely intriguing! I always wanted to keep reading to see what would be revealed to the reader next, and it was also just very well written. The only reason I didn't give it a full 5 stars is because I like happy endings too much.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Self harm, Sexual content, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, and Sexual assault
foreverinastory's review against another edition
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This was something else. If you really do not like snakes, don't read this one. There's lots of snakes especially cobras and other venomous ones. And a snake nose man--inserts a snake in his nose. It was very gross.
Rep: Biracial Vietnamese-American cishet female MC, cishet Vietnamese cast.
CWs: Blood, body horror (including swapping bodies and possession), drug use/abuse, death, murder, animal cruelty (capturing snakes to take venom, attempted dog kidnapping to take to a restaurant), gore, injury/injury detail, sexual assault, sexual content, sexual violence, snakes, suicide, toxic friendship, violence, xenophobia. Moderate: Misogyny, incest, rape, attempted necrophilia, colonisation, sexism. Minor: eating disorder, cursing, racism, war.
Rep: Biracial Vietnamese-American cishet female MC, cishet Vietnamese cast.
CWs: Blood, body horror (including swapping bodies and possession), drug use/abuse, death, murder, animal cruelty (capturing snakes to take venom, attempted dog kidnapping to take to a restaurant), gore, injury/injury detail, sexual assault, sexual content, sexual violence, snakes, suicide, toxic friendship, violence, xenophobia. Moderate: Misogyny, incest, rape, attempted necrophilia, colonisation, sexism. Minor: eating disorder, cursing, racism, war.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Gore, Drug use, Alcohol, Blood, Xenophobia, Body horror, Sexual violence, Animal cruelty, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Drug abuse, Sexual content, Suicide, Toxic friendship, and Violence
Moderate: Incest, Sexism, Misogyny, Rape, and Colonisation
Minor: Cursing, Eating disorder, Racism, and War
annreadsabook's review
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Why aren't more people talking about this book??
At the highest level of abstraction, Build Your House Around My Body is about 22-year-old Winnie Nguyen, a young Vietnamese-American woman employed at an English language academy in Saigon who suddenly goes missing—the culmination of years of events unbeknownst to Winnie herself. The jacket cover describes the novel as "part puzzle, part revenge tale, and part ghost story," and I think that's probably the best way to concisely summarize this book. Honestly, though, I don't want to give too much away here because I thoroughly enjoyed going into this book with pretty much only the jacket cover's explanation to inform my expectations (and let me just say, I really was not prepared for what was in these pages)...
After briefly seeing a couple (spoiler-free) reviews of this novel, I decided to give it a go and I absolutely do not regret it. Build Your House Around My Body is a whirlwind spanning the course of over half a century of Vietnamese history, from haunted rubber plantations to Saigon nightclubs. Although I'm sometimes annoyed at novels that force the reader to switch perspectives between characters, Violet Kupersmith does a fantastic job of weaving together various stories across multiple decades such that it was hard for me to put this book down. The arrangement of these various characters and timelines adds to the sense that the past is very much alive today—in more ways than one might think. Kupersmith's novel additionally considers the ways in which women have been mistreated, subjugated, and considered disposable (that's where the revenge comes in).
If you're a fan of magical realism, horror, or historical fiction, I highly recommend this book!!
At the highest level of abstraction, Build Your House Around My Body is about 22-year-old Winnie Nguyen, a young Vietnamese-American woman employed at an English language academy in Saigon who suddenly goes missing—the culmination of years of events unbeknownst to Winnie herself. The jacket cover describes the novel as "part puzzle, part revenge tale, and part ghost story," and I think that's probably the best way to concisely summarize this book. Honestly, though, I don't want to give too much away here because I thoroughly enjoyed going into this book with pretty much only the jacket cover's explanation to inform my expectations (and let me just say, I really was not prepared for what was in these pages)...
After briefly seeing a couple (spoiler-free) reviews of this novel, I decided to give it a go and I absolutely do not regret it. Build Your House Around My Body is a whirlwind spanning the course of over half a century of Vietnamese history, from haunted rubber plantations to Saigon nightclubs. Although I'm sometimes annoyed at novels that force the reader to switch perspectives between characters, Violet Kupersmith does a fantastic job of weaving together various stories across multiple decades such that it was hard for me to put this book down. The arrangement of these various characters and timelines adds to the sense that the past is very much alive today—in more ways than one might think. Kupersmith's novel additionally considers the ways in which women have been mistreated, subjugated, and considered disposable (that's where the revenge comes in).
If you're a fan of magical realism, horror, or historical fiction, I highly recommend this book!!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Death, and Sexual content
Moderate: Colonisation
Minor: Eating disorder
hannahreadss's review
mysterious
tense
medium-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
4.0
Content Warnings
Minor: Sexual content and Drug use
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