Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias

60 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

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

bleepbloop's review against another edition

dark

3.75

good. really gory.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, and Murder

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

dianadelacruisin's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense slow-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, and Blood

Minor: Animal cruelty

lisettemarie's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Cancer, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Racism, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Cannibalism, Murder, and Classism

cbushwrite's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious 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

5.0

Please read this book. If you like suspense and supernatural horror, and as long as anti-heroes don't completely turn you off, this will be the best book you've read in a long time. One I will not forget.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, and Blood

Moderate: Cancer, Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Misogyny, Violence, Trafficking, Grief, Toxic friendship, and Colonisation

leahrosereads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense medium-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

5.0

The Devil Takes You Home was gritty, heart wrenching, disturbing, and so fucking interesting.  It's going to sound weird, but I savored this story, sat with it for days longer than it normally takes me, and still, even as it ended, I wanted more.

Not because this story wasn't told to fruition, because it was, and spectacularly so, but because I'm absolutely unhingedly intrigued by the bits of supernatural we saw.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Drug use, Racism, Violence, Blood, and Grief

Moderate: Body horror, Child abuse, Confinement, Domestic abuse, and Racial slurs

Minor: Transphobia