Reviews tagging 'Racism'

The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias

76 reviews

glorifiedloveletters's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

4.0

Mixing border crossings with the supernatural, Gabino Iglesias's THE DEVIL TAKES YOU HOME is the among the darkest of noirs. After Mario loses his daughter (and marriage) to cancer, he finds himself drawn into "one last job" with a big payday, hoping to win back his ex-wife and start anew. If you're at all ishy about violence, this is NOT the book for you— I admit to my toes curling during one particular scene— but none of it feels superfluous to the story. Iglesias's writing is vivid, artful, and has a lot to say about why people behave the way they do when backed into a corner. I'll be thinking about this book for awhile.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gun violence, Racism, Violence, and Xenophobia

Minor: Transphobia

jumpinjachflash's review against another edition

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Blood, Grief, Suicide attempt, Murder, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

blacksphinx's review against another edition

dark sad tense 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

3.5

I loved this story. Gabino Iglesias is an incredible writer, who could take an awful person like Mario and still make him a compelling protagonist. When given an opportunity to help pay off some of his child's medical debt by shooting a man in the back of the head, he doesn't hesitate for long and finds he enjoyed being a hit man. When later given the opportunity to rob a cartel truck and stealing their drug money for a $200,000 payout, he's all for it. But Iglesias makes you care about him, want to follow him on this heist.

There's some great stuff in this book. The discussions of religion are so real, so refreshing, and it's not even my culture and religion! The way characters dipped into and out of Spanish felt real, as someone who lives in an area with a high Mexican population. There amount of swearing in this novel is perfect, it always felt like actual people talking to each other. The supernatural horrors are just as bad as the things humans do to each other. One of the few things that I didn't like is that Mario spends a large portion of the book inside his own head, and all he can think about are his child and his wife and how he failed them in the same ways and it got repetitive, but I could live with that.

And then we get to that fucking ending. I hate it.

This entire book is a "shoot the shaggy dog" story and it made me feel like I had wasted 10 hours of my time.

This is a wonderful and beloved book for someone, but it is extremely not for me. 

Also, we are not messing around with the "murder", "gore", and "violence" tags. Consider this to be a Dead Dove Don't Eat warning.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Racism, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Death of parent, Murder, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Cancer, Fatphobia, Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Medical content, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Child death, Misogyny, Transphobia, and Deportation

megan_harper's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Blood, Trafficking, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

jasisreading's review against another edition

challenging dark tense fast-paced

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

1.5

this book had potential but somewhere between the third act

where mario k*lls brian

and the climax where

mario confronts juanca and ends up dead

, the book went in a direction I don't believe was bulit up thematically.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Drug abuse, Gun violence, and Racism

babybokchoy333's review against another edition

medium-paced

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

3.0

This book is an adequate weekend/vacation read. The characters have potential to be interesting with their own internal biases and flaws, but there is barely any development. The Spanglish dialogue was refreshing and one of the few things that helped with character depth. However the rest of the writing style is so flat and tries too hard to be poetic and while failing. There was actually a line that read "the garage floor was grey like a garage floor" :/

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror

Moderate: Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Racism, and Grief

shiftycow1313's review against another edition

I knew based on the description that this book was going to be dark, but it is DARK DARK DARK. I'll try to pick it up again someday when my head is in a better space.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

horizon_fire's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cursing, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Racism, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Addiction, Cancer, Child death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Terminal illness, Medical content, Grief, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, and Classism

Minor: Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Vomit, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Pregnancy

haiwie's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Torture, and Murder

Moderate: Gore

Minor: Racism and Suicidal thoughts

amandaroa's review against another edition

dark emotional tense slow-paced

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

3.0

I tried to read this book a year ago but it was just too ugly and I stopped. I decided to try again, being in the right mood for it, started over from the beginning.  
I can acknowledge the writing was great. The book put me into the shoes of a character whose world I have never experienced and did so im a way that was thought-provoking. But did I like the book? Not really. Might someone else? Sure. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Racism, Blood, and Murder