Reviews with content warning for Cannibalism - Walking Practice

Reviews tagging 'Cannibalism'

Walking Practice by Dolki Min

22 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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orinthebard's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

While the extraterrestrial main character's actions are often reprehensible to the human mind (seducing people into a false sense of safety then eating their heads like a preying mantis, etc), Dolki Min's detailed descriptions of being forced to expend most of one's energy masking as a typical human for survival were extremely relatable to me as a trans autistic person. There's something to be said about how we can become monsters in our attempt to avoid being seen as monsters by a prejudiced society, forced to turn to manipulation by our isolation. This was also so, so funny at parts, partially thanks to the audiobook reader Nicky Edres's choices.

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amme's review against another edition

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dark funny fast-paced

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

3.25

Found the book to be both fun and grotesque. The way the author used the alien to discuss social anxiety, dating, loneliness, and gender identity was very compelling.
Where the book lost me was the glaring fatphobia from the alien. It felt incredibly disjointed coming from the same alien that has been spouting critiques on our societal structures for the entire book.

If you can't do gore, skip this one.

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rosie_valadez's review against another edition

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2.5

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questionablereads's review against another edition

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dark funny mysterious fast-paced

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

3.0

The messaging on queerness and not wanting to hide while also wanting to find true love was front and center of this book. Mix that with the brutality of the main characters "appetite" and attempt to understand human ways, things get complicated. This is a quirky and quick read that was both playful and heartbreaking.

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kri_29's review

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challenging dark reflective fast-paced

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

3.5

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shellan's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

4.25

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ethnographchic's review against another edition

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challenging dark funny fast-paced

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

4.25

This book is disgusting in a way that only queer science fiction can manage to be. Its vivid descriptions of body horror made me physically recoil, at the same time I found myself delighting in some moments of the narrator playing jury judge and executioner. There are a lot of angles this book can be examined and it is if nothing else very interesting. I do think some of the poignancy and existential musings does get overshadowed by the ridiculously vivid depravity. Personally I don’t really like sci-fi or super violent books, but despite that I got through this very quickly and would recommend to anyone who wants something a little off beat

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sleepycaboose's review against another edition

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adventurous dark fast-paced

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

4.0

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readingwithcoffee's review against another edition

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dark funny reflective tense fast-paced

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

2.5

The ideas are vastly better then the execution especially prose wise but it’s honestly a lot of fun and very refreshing read it also very crude and explicit in both what it’s using a thin veil of scifi to talk about while being pretty explicit about gender and gender and sexuality as performance.

I felt like there was a conversation about lookism in South Korea that’s incredibly intense but really hard to get if you’re a foreigner (even if you’re familiar with desirability politics) that never fully felt really used well but that and the conversation about cameras and unseen cameras taking photos that was definitely a references to spy camera sexual violence in South Korea and Japan felt kinda refreshing to be the core point of the book or just sat and explained versus a part of the life the alien was going through.

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