Reviews tagging 'Hate crime'

Walking Practice by Dolki Min

11 reviews

akizato's review against another edition

challenging dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I liked the overarching exploration of gender and living with invisible disability but man the pacing really ruined this for me. We spend pages upon pages of the main character waxing lyrical on various topics (the female presentation stuff felt very early 2000s feminism) while doing the same thing over and over, and then at the last minute

they get beaten to near death for some unexplained reason, spend a millisecond recovering, and then, after a sex scene that is as close to rape as it can get without being there, the main character is murdered by their assailant. The queer allegory character goes cruising and gets assaulted and then murdered.

What was the point? I get that it's horror and that doesn't usually have a happy ending, but this went literally nowhere. The character didn't grow or change, and the ending didn't seem particularly earned after the drudgery of what came before. I put up with a heavier amount of gore and sex scenes that were basically also gore in how viscerally they were described, and for what??

This felt like a first draft that could do with some expansion to explore the more interesting parts. 

I will praise the translation though, which is part of the reason it even gets 2 stars. Representing the exhaustion and alien-ness with the font getting all weird was really well done, it's a really good translation!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, Cannibalism, Murder, and Dysphoria

Moderate: Body shaming, Chronic illness, Fatphobia, and Hate crime

Minor: Excrement and Sexual harassment

bateleanor's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Amazing. Disturbing. Beautiful. Horrifying. Relatable in the worst ways. Visceral. Tangible. Philosophical and heartbreaking. I am recommending this book to all my strangest friends. I think we will understand it better together.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Hate crime, Mental illness, Sexual violence, Excrement, Vomit, Abandonment, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

mar's review

dark funny reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.5

while it works really well within the story, the visceral, graphic grotesqueness just wasn't my thing; definitely my shortcoming, not the book's. still, i loved the way the author & translator play with the form, and the exploration of transness and disability really hit home

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Fatphobia, Hate crime, and Excrement

samgray's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Death, Gore, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

jrmar739's review against another edition

dark funny fast-paced

• Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Hate crime, Sexual content, Violence, and Blood

callme_tippy's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

In the realm of reading it is very hard to say "I've never read a book like this" but with Walking Practice I can say it with confidence and I loved every minute of it!

The scene setting, the characterization, the stylistic choices in visuals and writing were all spot on. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Fatphobia, Hate crime, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

melliedm's review against another edition

dark funny reflective fast-paced

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

5.0

What's all this nonsense, you say? Just think of it as the ramblings of a life-form pretending to be human. It won't be that important to you, dear reader.

A strange, intensely evocative novel about the sensation of being alien to the society you live in, discussing concepts like masking, isolation, anxiety, and desire in a package equally relatable and…well, alien. 

Maybe it’s just the autistic, chronically ill, queer in me—but yeah. This one hit home.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Gore, Hate crime, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Vomit, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Ableism, Fatphobia, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, and Violence

Minor: Animal death, Body shaming, Excrement, and Dysphoria

wasabiapple's review against another edition

dark funny tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Hate crime, Homophobia, Sexual content, and Violence

foolishyetdangerousbooks's review against another edition

challenging dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Hate crime, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Cannibalism, and Murder

applesodaperson's review against another edition

dark reflective fast-paced

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

4.25

This book came highly recommended, and yeah it lived up to the hype. It was such an interesting commentary of society within such a weird framework. I loved the part talking about gender assumptions. And I also loved the part about how people judge those that don't walk the same as them, which was such a good commentary about ableism, accessibility, and the way society treats those with disabilities. I also highly highly recommend listening to this book in an audiobook form. The narrator did such a good job and really makes it feel like an alien is saying all the things in the book. 
Listened to on Libby.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Hate crime