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A review by yourspookymom
Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite
5.0
“How could you love someone without wanting to seek out his innermost membranes & spend your pleasure there?”
This is nothing like what I had expected it to be. This story is deeply unsettling and unfathomably heart-wrenching. A book like Exquisite Corpse promises to stay with you for years to come. I truly am having a really hard time understanding how to possibly put my thoughts into words. Everything from the location to the scene setting and dynamic characters brought this story to life. It’s written almost poetically, but the descriptions weren’t too flowery or overzealous in their delivery. Brite at times made me feel as if I was seeing everything around me in vivid clarity and other times made me feel as if I was navigating a hazy drunk. I see a lot of people talking about the pacing, but I liked it quite a bit.
Exquisite Corpse follows 4 gay men in New Orleans. Tran, a young Vietnamese boy who is attempting to overcome the loss of an unbelievable love and navigating live after being kicked out of his home. Luke, deeply mourning his lost love with Tran, slowly unravels after a positive HIV test. Andrew, murderous and deviant in nature, has just escaped prison. Jay, an heir to a well-known name in New Orleans, has an insatiable appetite. Without knowing, they all become deeply entangled. And at the center of this entanglement lies Tran.
The social commentary is both obvious yet hidden at times, but clearly speaks to the unjust bias against LGBTQIA+ folks (particularly focusing on gay men) at the height of the AIDS epidemic. Exquisite Corpse will eat you alive in it’s depravity and heartbreak - masked as a love story, but truly understanding the tones of this novel revealed so much more to me. I loved all the emotions, but will certainly need to recover after such a heavy read.
5/5 - quite extreme for non-seasoned extreme horror readers. Please check trigger warnings and take breaks while reading!
This is nothing like what I had expected it to be. This story is deeply unsettling and unfathomably heart-wrenching. A book like Exquisite Corpse promises to stay with you for years to come. I truly am having a really hard time understanding how to possibly put my thoughts into words. Everything from the location to the scene setting and dynamic characters brought this story to life. It’s written almost poetically, but the descriptions weren’t too flowery or overzealous in their delivery. Brite at times made me feel as if I was seeing everything around me in vivid clarity and other times made me feel as if I was navigating a hazy drunk. I see a lot of people talking about the pacing, but I liked it quite a bit.
Exquisite Corpse follows 4 gay men in New Orleans. Tran, a young Vietnamese boy who is attempting to overcome the loss of an unbelievable love and navigating live after being kicked out of his home. Luke, deeply mourning his lost love with Tran, slowly unravels after a positive HIV test. Andrew, murderous and deviant in nature, has just escaped prison. Jay, an heir to a well-known name in New Orleans, has an insatiable appetite. Without knowing, they all become deeply entangled. And at the center of this entanglement lies Tran.
The social commentary is both obvious yet hidden at times, but clearly speaks to the unjust bias against LGBTQIA+ folks (particularly focusing on gay men) at the height of the AIDS epidemic. Exquisite Corpse will eat you alive in it’s depravity and heartbreak - masked as a love story, but truly understanding the tones of this novel revealed so much more to me. I loved all the emotions, but will certainly need to recover after such a heavy read.
5/5 - quite extreme for non-seasoned extreme horror readers. Please check trigger warnings and take breaks while reading!