Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

21 reviews

jeremie's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Suicide, Stalking, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Medical content

Minor: Pedophilia

molly_greenshields's review against another edition

challenging emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.5

The title of this book should perhaps have forewarned me of its brutality... but alas, I was blindsided by the beautiful cover (thanks Picador). I can't honestly decide how I feel about The Virgin Suicides... on the one hand, I found myself hooked by what was perhaps one of the best examples of an unreliable narrator I've ever seen done (I *truly* hated those boys... although, what's new?). On the other hand, I did find myself feeling physically sick a whole awful lot (perhaps not totally surprising). Personally, I don't think I should have picked up a book that deals with this topic in such a blasé way, as it was really difficult for me to stomach the romanticisation and sensationalising of suicide (albeit in a sarcastic manner... I get that that was the point, I just didn't like it). Having said that, I do think Eugenides' prose is powerful and worth a read if this isn't something that you'd struggle with.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Grief, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Body horror, Gore, and Blood

Minor: Pregnancy

hfleur's review against another edition

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, and Blood

Minor: Mental illness

Graphic

phillyhufflepunk's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

I cried...but not from sadness. I cried in frustration. This is one of the starkest tragedies ever written, told from the perspective of selfish, inane narrators - under the delusion that they are somehow a part of the story. With each new development, they...and the self-involved upper middle class d bags that they spawned from...fail the Lisbon girls. Over and over and over, the community has opportunity to step in, but they don't. As these boys chronicle the downward spiral of their Manic Pixie Dream Girls, they continuously miss the moments in which they actually could have saved them.

The boys literally run out of the house after finding one of the girls dead without checking on any of the others, in spite of the fact that they were there to save them in the first place AND that they were about to let Lux do one or all of them just 10 minutes earlier.

 The Lisbon Girls deserved better, and although the story would have been 10x better from their perspectives, I still rate it 4 stars because by hearing the story from a bunch of clueless middle aged men, who were clueless teenaged boys, you see just how ignored these girls felt when they were practically SCREAMING for help.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

antoniav's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Confinement, Mental illness, and Sexual content

saoreads's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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

4.5

Its gruesome details are described as prosaic and poetic, with the metaphorical lines humming along the monstrosity of taking one's own life. It gave statistical inputs and the relating aspects of typical boys' adolescence, making it literally impossible to forget their first loves. The voyeurism was in one point of view, yet with the other it was the same too, though the latter didn't get to live long. After years and decades of searching for the "why", it somehow led to a point of redundancy, evidence, bias, and notions agreeing with the deed itself. That growing up sucks and daydreaming is better. Life wasn't in their control, so they took matters into their own hands, though it spoke of unrelenting grief hanging to a thread and plenty of factors no one might've noted. The fact that the parent's way of putting up their children suffocated them, or it might have stemmed from a faulty gene (or so they say, and to the extremes of five of them all?), or they took religion in their own different interpretations, there are plenty of what ifs that arise. However, the decision made brought agony and awful influence to their surroundings. It's one to assess yet not to act upon.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Deadnaming, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

blueberryelf's review against another edition

slow-paced

2.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Misogyny, Self harm, Suicide, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Suicide attempt, Cultural appropriation, and Injury/Injury detail

fronkiekong's review against another edition

dark funny reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

watched the movie back in high school and it is a shame i hadn't gotten around to actually reading this until now!!!! the writing is so beautiful and evocative of this honey sickly delirium rotting the neighbourhood from the inside out — much to unpack and peel back. i want to return to this sometime to look more at the developing labour and class issues that kept flitting by in the periphery.
and again, probably not the best place to say this, but i wish i had a sister.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Suicide, Grief, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Confinement, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, and Pregnancy

Minor: Domestic abuse

waste_cup's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-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

2.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Grief, and Suicide attempt

lakyn's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

a very good book, i loved the lisbon girls. this book did a good job describing the male gaze. i hated the boy narrators. 

had so much hope 4 trip :( also the way the boys failed repeatedly to ask about the girls mental health or try and actually help them is disgusting.  they only viewed the girls as sexual fantasies and not real people. no women got input throughout the whole story. good representation of the male gaze.

no poc main characters tho

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Self harm, Suicide, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Body horror, Sexual content, and Blood