Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Build Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith

7 reviews

kaiyakaiyo's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense 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? It's complicated

4.5

this was…. hm. 4.5 stars

it was incredibly well-written, if a bit dark for my tastes. the characters were so interesting and zoomed-in; it really felt like living in their heads. 

while i thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, my head hurts a little trying to keep up with all the threads. the author bit off a lot, chewed it pretty well, but i think the bolus was a bit too much for me to swallow in the end. i can tell a lot of work went into weaving all the threads together, but i think i need to write out a timeline to really feel like i finished this book. part of that is me wanting a neater ending for winnie, but the other part is just that this book throws a lot of competing desires and pains at you all at once 

enjoyed reading, and would definitely read more by this author! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Gore, Blood, Sexism, Vomit, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, and Misogyny

Moderate: Misogyny, Rape, Sexual harassment, Animal death, Eating disorder, Pedophilia, Animal cruelty, Alcoholism, Incest, Excrement, Sexual assault, and Alcohol

porporina's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Confinement, Cursing, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual harassment, Slavery, Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, Gore, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, Grief, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racism, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Vomit, Alcohol, Abandonment, Body horror, Misogyny, Police brutality, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexism

mmefish's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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

4.75

Incredible. I wanna talk about it for days.

The way Winnie found true happiness in becoming a rat is just delightful.

How could I explain the way time seemed to slip from my fingers, the way I became incrementally more detached, more unable to reach out a hand to take anything I wanted? 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Excrement, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Vomit, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Body horror, and Drug use

Moderate: Toxic friendship, Pedophilia, Animal death, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Eating disorder, War, Incest, and Rape

ericageorge91'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

4.25

This book was a slow burn love. I was invested from the beginning because I needed to know what happened to the missing girls/women but it also felt like a puzzle?? There are multiple POV and time jumps but each character’s perspective would reference previous characters provide further insight to their  background. I found myself looking forward to discovering these little nuggets and callbacks. 

The horror in this story would slowly creep in the best way possible. Several scenes had me shivering. Please read this book!! 🤗

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Colonisation, Fire/Fire injury, and Body horror

Moderate: Sexism, Animal death, and Animal cruelty

Minor: Child abuse, Sexual assault, War, Incest, Sexual violence, Trafficking, and Vomit

adam_nie's review

dark mysterious fast-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

4.25

Dramatic irony! Crossed paths! I'm too squeamish for capital h Horror, but Kupersmith handles upsetting material well.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Colonisation, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual content, Chronic illness, Death, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Drug use, and Blood

emudds's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

such a good tense adventure you get taken on in this book, and with plenty of genuinely scary moments to satisfy the spook craving. i love winnie's journey, starting from a poorly defined sense of being lost upon arrival in saigon to contextualizing out of body experiences to feel in her body again, and i love how you feel her sadness and binh's anger release by the end of the novel. by far my favorite read of the year so far.

quotes i loved:
-"she assumed that one day she would fill all of this space. that her life here would provide things worth keeping. that she herself would become someone worthy of being kept."
-"she had brought with her a passport, two sets of clean clothes, and her own flesh. all the rest she would acquire."
-"winnie told herself that the uneasy fluttering she still felt in her stomach was just the sensation of her old roots finally starting to come loose."
"'the wrongness in me, i'm not sure whether it's all from that night at the club, or if it started when i first came here, or if it started before then. did i break, or was i broken from the beginning?' 'listen to me, winnie, no part of you is wrong.'"
-"my love, you know so many ghosts, but you cannot know mine"

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Eating disorder

Moderate: Sexual violence and Animal death

writingcaia's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

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

4.25

What a trip this book was!
Using family trees and native Vietnamese myths and folklore, the author tells the story of several characters to encompass such a large part of Vietnam’s most recent history (going back more than 50 years), and it all starts with the disappearance of a Vietnamese American young woman with severe mental issues by the time it occurs, some of them are real some are hauntings. 
Going back from there we will find the nature of the man she lives with, his brother, and most importantly the girl who was their everything when they were young. A wild girl who hunts snakes, and she’s the connection to a ghost hunter and exorcist, a man the forest chose to save from the war, to a mother without a daughter, to French occupation, to rape and serfdom.
It’s not the easiest read due to its complicated timeline, that keeps shifting, going back and forward with no great logic, but you get used to it after a while and when the dots all start connecting, when you understand that what matters are the different stories and the history, not the timeline or that one story it becomes addictive.
Not knowing Vietnam or its people I believe this is the closest I will ever get, as the book brilliantly woven a tale that encompasses so much of the culture, history, and people, also the present and how it is affected by its folklore and past. 
Definitely a read I recommend, especially if you’re looking for a great read for API month.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Toxic friendship, and Violence

Moderate: Alcohol, Colonisation, Self harm, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Sexual harassment, War, Incest, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Pedophilia, and Rape