A review by rnbhargava
The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense fast-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? Yes

5.0

This book has a fantastic story that has you see the narrative of the story from a multitude of points of view but honestly it doesn’t get confusing. There’s even points where you recontextualize earlier points in the story where things weren’t exactly what you thought they were.
This is honestly one of my favorite reads in years. I now need to find Simon Jimenez’s first novel. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Misogyny, Self harm, Sexual content, Slavery, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

The layering of potential triggers is heavy in this book. There are figures that are dead/potentially dead. There are figures that are mixed with animal appearance. There’s cannibalism. There’s borderline self loathing/coming to grips with being homosexual. There are points where characters are in each other’s heads. The villains are brutal and unforgiving. Even some of the supporting characters aren’t fully trustworthy at points. This book’s narrative is intense.