Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

Confessions of the Fox by Jordy Rosenberg

30 reviews

singlier's review

adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

Confessions of the Fox by Jordy Rosenberg 4/5 🦊s 

This book is weird--part memoir, part unhinged rambling footnotes, part collective memory. It reimagines the life of famous Victorian thief, Jack Sheppard, as a transgender man, exploring the intersections of his identity with period-accurate racism, incarceration, destruction of land, government corruption, and colonialism. It is also a story-within-a-story: told in the footnotes of the memoir is the story of Dr. Voth, a transgender man and college professor, currently grappling with the loss of his love and his debilitating OCD, who imprints onto Jack and uses the footnotes as the pedestal for self-reflection and anti-academia rhetoric. 

At the end of the novel, I can't say I understood everything. It is committed to its appearance as an authentic 18th century text, which means it is dense and difficult to parse. The footnotes only add to its difficulty: calling upon a vast array of knowledge from Marxism to queer theory. The plot too, often feels scattered: caught between a mysterious conspiracy of government corruption and Jack's unquestionable love for his partner. But, with all this, I still found myself thoroughly enjoying it. I could not predict where it would lead me, but I enjoyed the journey there. 

Minus points for a lot of mentions of piss, even though it does (eventually) become plot relevant.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gore, Racism, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Police brutality, Medical trauma, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

caseythereader's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Thank you to One World Books for the free copy of this book.

 - CONFESSIONS OF THE FOX is one of the strangest, most fascinating books I’ve ever read. I loved the structure, with the body of the book being the “lost manuscript” and the footnotes being the professor telling his story alongside the manuscript.
- There is so much going on here, I hardly know where to start. Everything from the historical erasure of trans people to the prison industrial complex is pinpointed and torn down in a frenzy.
- For me, things got a bit muddled at the end of the book, but overall this book is well worth the trip there. Do pay attention to those content warnings though, as it’s pretty grossly graphic throughout. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Confinement, Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Colonisation, Dysphoria, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

ninjamuse's review against another edition

challenging slow-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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Police brutality, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Sexual content, Transphobia, Colonisation, and Classism

Minor: Forced institutionalization

katiewhocanread's review against another edition

challenging funny fast-paced

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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Sexual content, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, and Medical content

Moderate: Deadnaming and Racism

Minor: Mental illness and Racial slurs

morelsupport's review

emotional hopeful slow-paced

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

3.0

I thought this would be a book about being a thief, but it was actually a book about transitioning (this is a highly simplified plot summary). I thought it was really interesting how it incorporated anti-capitalism and anti-racism and transness into the story, but I honestly didn't find it very engaging, and I wasn't tense at the points where I was supposed to be tense. The thing I enjoyed the most were the footnotes, and the way that the person who was reading these confessions was a character in the same way that the subjects of the confessions were characters. I also really liked the resources provided. However, I just honestly didn't find this that engaging, and it was very jarring when modern concepts of transness were inserted in this supposed firsthand source. I really wished that Jack's feats of thievery that got him famous were more prominent. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Sexual content, Transphobia, and Dysphoria

Moderate: Police brutality

carbs666's review

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

Deeply researched and lovingly crafted, this book is like nothing I've ever read before. Confessions layered on top of confessions, the inherent queerness of the disobedient archive, funny and insightful and personal footnotes, unreliable and fantastical and multiplicitous narration, a utopia outside of time, an escape. It's good. You have to read it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Sexual content, Police brutality, Medical content, Alcohol, Colonisation, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Body horror, Death, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, and Medical content

laurajsmith's review

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Medical content and Medical trauma

Minor: Body horror, Sexual content, Blood, Police brutality, and Alcohol

octopus_farmer's review

hopeful lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

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

4.5

I liked the conceit - in many ways this is what i wanted The Starless Sea to be. I was almost annoyed by the researcher at times but came around on him. I also loveddd how the footnotes and related readings are all real texts! However, there’s a fair amount of piss that at times is kinky.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Sexual content, Excrement, Death of parent, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Racism and Transphobia

bronzeageholly's review against another edition

adventurous inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Violence, Police brutality, Medical content, and Murder

Moderate: Drug use, Transphobia, Blood, Death of parent, and Alcohol

Minor: Vomit

homewithyou's review against another edition

adventurous informative medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Hate crime, Sexism, Transphobia, Blood, Medical content, and Dysphoria

Moderate: Child abuse, Drug use, and Colonisation

Minor: Sexual content