Reviews tagging 'Transphobia'

The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enríquez

88 reviews

ava_lanche's review

dark mysterious reflective fast-paced

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

4.0

Twelve eerie stories that thrive in the mysteries they create! These mysteries are not meant to be solved, only experienced through the eyes of different Argentine women whose voices have been quieted, either by shame and insanity or by the ever-present fear of it.

Hailing from impoverished slums, trafficked children haunt the streets; raped and murdered girls reappear in silence; mothers curse their daughters; girls are possessed and scarred yet no one believes them. Crushed rib cages and torn entrails – anatomical obsessions turn bloody. Here, what is not said is the most powerful.

As with most collections of stories, some pieces are stronger than others. Many of these stories feel a little... unfinished. Some endings are unsatisfactory, which is such a shame, as most of the premises are unusually creative and thought-provoking.

However, "The Well", "Where Are You, Dear Heart?" and "Rambla Triste" were definite highlights. I also liked "The Cart" and "The Kids Who Come Back".

The stories work well together, and create a Buenos Aires that is filled with danger – physical, mental and paranormal. The poisons of the city has taken on a ghostly shape, and the repercussions are felt mostly by the women, whether it's their bodies or their minds that are marked by violence, and whether the sins are committed by people or by ghosts.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Self harm, Addiction, Sexual harassment, Rape, Physical abuse, Misogyny, Body horror, Gun violence, Drug abuse, Child death, Sexual content, Pedophilia, Murder, Medical trauma, Death, Alcoholism, Trafficking, Suicide, Sexism, Panic attacks/disorders, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Hate crime, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual violence, Violence, Mental illness, Kidnapping, Gore, and Excrement

librarymouse's review

adventurous challenging dark medium-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? It's complicated

3.5

This was a quick read. The shorter stories felt like an RL Stine book, but vulgar. "Kids Who Come Back" had unnecessary use of transphobic slurs, but was the longest and most engaging story in the book.
Copious references to and depictions of bodily fluid didn't necessarily add to the horror, but made reading this a bit disgusting.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cannibalism, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Sexual assault, Self harm, Sexism, Vomit, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Body shaming, Chronic illness, Eating disorder, Suicidal thoughts, Addiction, Body horror, Excrement, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Violence, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Sexual content, Suicide, and Transphobia

Moderate: Abandonment

woolgatherer's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

2.5

I was really looking forward to this collection of short stories, especially as someone who enjoys some haunting atmospheres. Enríquez does a great job crafting an eerie Buenos Aires and some very dark plots for her stories, though I found some were more convincing than others. Unfortunately, I felt that something was missing in these stories and I really struggled to stay focused on this collection. I want to say the issue might be that almost all of them fell flat at the end for me. It could be that the author wanted to leave an air of mystery at the end of these stories, but I found that she was a bit unsuccessful on this front. It should also be noted that the short story, “Kids Who Come Back,” has a lot of transphobic slurs that I thought were entirely unnecessary and didn’t serve a purpose to the story (and, in fact, ruined it).

I’m still interested in reading Enríquez’s other works, but this collection was a bit of a letdown.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Self harm, Cannibalism, Body horror, and Death

Moderate: Blood, Trafficking, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Suicide, and Transphobia

Minor: Drug use and Alcohol

kjboldon's review

challenging dark mysterious fast-paced

4.25

Enter at your own risk: rape, violence, cannibalism, self harm, suicide, use of transphobic slurs by a character and a whole bunch else. This book is bonkers, horrifying on purpose, and not for the faint of heart. But wow was it a ride. Dark AF. I was reading along and feeling like I was doing OK even though horror isn't usually my jam, then I got to the story on heartbeats.Whoa. So, there's lots of landmines and triggers here. Take care of yourself as you read this and if something upsets you, skip to the next story or put it down. But reading to the end gets you a fabulous story about teen girls and a Ouija board. This is scary, spooky AF, and part of that is the way the supernatural and the everyday horrors overlap and bleed into one another. I think Mary Shelley and Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith would all be proud that this work stands on their (and many others') shoulders. Did you enjoy Carmen Maria Machado's Her Body and Other Parties? This reminded me of that, but even more so. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Chronic illness, Gore, Mental illness, Murder, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Violence, Transphobia, Blood, Death, Body horror, Cannibalism, Self harm, Pedophilia, Vomit, and Trafficking

wiley_coyote5's review

dark emotional mysterious 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Child abuse, Pedophilia, and Death

Moderate: Sexual assault, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Transphobia, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, and Torture

This is a dark, heavy book. Each story is about awful people, doing selfish things and getting punished for it.

borangeade's review against another edition

dark sad fast-paced

• Loveable characters? No

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Sexual content, Racial slurs, Child death, and Death

Moderate: Pedophilia

Minor: Xenophobia and Transphobia

msteasam's review against another edition

dark mysterious fast-paced

3.5

I don't usually click with short story collections because they tend to leave too much unexplored or don't develop the story well enough. Some of these felt like full stories and some were cut off way too soon and let me unsatisfied.
Overall an interesting and unsettling collection.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror and Addiction

Minor: Drug abuse, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Cannibalism, Domestic abuse, Pedophilia, Transphobia, Child death, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Rape, Child abuse, Death, Self harm, Trafficking, and Excrement

gracieyue's review against another edition

3.25

Trigger warning: The short story Kids Who Came Back contains two uses of the t-slur and three uses of the word "transvestites." 

I think The Dangers of Smoking in Bed was overhyped to me from seeing it on BookTube. I find a lot of books that people say are "so fucked up" to ultimately let me down in that respect. I don't know if I just consumed way too much horror content as a child which desensitised me, but I was immediately disappointed after cracking this one open. I wish that this prior expectation didn't exist because this book's strengths are moreso in atmosphere and subtle horror, and mixing in the everyday urban and suburban. I enjoyed seeing the settings of the book, mostly Argentina and Spain. When I think of this book, I think of concrete streets filled with cigarette smoke.

I was glad to see that this book was older than I thought - it was first published in Spanish in 2009 and only translated to English in 2021. This actually makes me excited to read the other works by Mariana Enríquez, her other short story collection Things We Lost in the Fire (2019) and her novel Our Share of Night (2022) because I see a lot of potential in her writing and I'm hoping she's taken her strengths from Dangers and improved on them. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Death, Trafficking, Adult/minor relationship, and Transphobia

clara_mai's review against another edition

4.0

 This is an extremely dark short story collection, mostly set in Buenos Aires. As in her novel Our Share of Night, which I read and loved earlier this year, Mariana Enriquez creates a unique kind of horror that is very rooted in its setting - Argentinian politics and history, Indigenous mythology and urban legends of Buenos Aires are the bones of this collection. At its heart lie the strange obsessions we humans harbour - with bodies for instance, with sex and death. Most of the stories really pack a punch in only a few pages. I was captivated by Mariana Enriquez' simple and sharp prose and the scenes she creates. The descriptions of gore and injuries evoke a visceral reaction, Enriquez really knows how to make the reader squirm with disgust. My favourite stories in here are The Well, Meat and Our Lady of the Quarry. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Mental illness, Cannibalism, Violence, Self harm, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Pedophilia, Gore, Suicidal thoughts, and Excrement

Moderate: Alcoholism and Transphobia

goatsrsexy's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

4.0

I really enjoyed this short story collection. The author is Argentine and always enjoy reading books from Argentine authors because my mom was born there. The stories were not all necessarily horror (most were) but they were all haunting and spooky. 

Some were extremely disturbing, this book is definitely not for the faint of heart. The most disturbing was No Birthdays Or Baptisms. I still liked it but wouldn't read it again. 

My favourite story was definitely the titular one, it was super short but sad and melancholy in such an ordinary way it's the type of thing l'd like to write myself. Other favourites were The Cart, The Well, Meat, and Where Are You Dear Heart.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia, Sexual violence, Violence, and Gore

Moderate: Racism, Transphobia, Racial slurs, and Body horror