Reviews tagging 'Excrement'

Jeskyně zatracených by Caitlin Starling

6 reviews

meg_thebrave's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.0

I really liked the premise of the book. I think Gyre and Em are well written characters. This could have been a shorter story; sometimes too repetitive, as Gyre wandered the caves. The biggest horror of the story was the body horror, Gyre’s suit, and the claustrophobia of the tunnels.

The Tunneler reveal was underwhelming, but I appreciated that most of the climax involved Gyre’s waning sanity and physical injuries.

I’d definitely read something shorter by this author, who is skilled at character exploration. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Death, Drug use, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Death of parent, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Medical trauma

wrenny03's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad 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

4.0

Do not go into The Caves. The Caves are alive and malicious and they want you dead. This book fucks.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Drug use, Vomit, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Confinement, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, and Blood

Minor: Drug abuse, Toxic relationship, Excrement, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

smarzipan's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Gore, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Medical trauma, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Excrement, Grief, Gaslighting, and Abandonment

talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Gore, Grief, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Drug use, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Classism

Minor: Suicide and Excrement

Nonconsensual drugging, loss of bodily autonomy. Overdose. Hallucinations, paranoia, surveillance, unreality. Descriptions of bodies in various states of decay. Limb loss.

booksthatburn's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

5.0

THE LUMINOUS DEAD is dense, claustrophobic, atmospheric horror, dripping with details. It builds a miasma of uncertainty by describing what the MC thinks happened then sometimes admitting that she was wrong, rarely revealing if her guide was mistaken too. The first half lingers on meticulous detail of the path through the caves, so that later we will know why a missing cache is worthy of terror, why the thought of pressing on towards one camp or returning to another elicits a silent scream. It tells in pieces a small and personal history of death underground, the dependence on the only voice around, helplessness when chance, mistrust, and technological failure cause breaches in connection.

I’m finding that I really like this kind of quiet horror. Books where most of the story is just explaining literally what’s happening, but the horror is in what should be happening but isn’t, shouldn’t be happening but is, and the precariousness of having to trust other people about one’s own body, in contexts where it is difficult to control whether or not boundaries will be respected. It understands that gaslighting is isolating and terrifying, and the terror is in being almost sure, wrong once, right once, and then never again being quite certain of what’s really happening. Hallucinogenic substances, involuntarily ingested, may be involved, in various times and manners. 

I love this for many of the same reasons that I love Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. The settings are very different, but they have many tendrils of horror in common. If you like sci-fi and liked Mexican Gothic, you'll probably like this (and if you like The Luminous Dead and like aesthetic non-sci-fi horror, you'll probably like Mexican Gothic).

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Drug use, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Excrement, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, and Gaslighting

folkmare's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

Well, I loved this. Horror, check. Sci-fi, check. Gay, check. Deeply flawed female characters, check. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Gore, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, and Grief

Moderate: Death, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Excrement, Vomit, and Death of parent

This whole book is very claustrophobic and unnerving. Our narrator is unreliable more and more as she goes on and becomes paranoid. There is some (mild?) gaslighting as her handler intentionally misleads Gyre and tells her she's fine when she's not, lies to her repeatedly, and forcibly drugs her. I didn't mark self-harm because it isn't depression-motivated but there IS a self amputation of a limb. Also a lot of talk about the bio-suit and how it reroutes organs and the digestive system which can be gross if you're sensitive to that.