Reviews tagging 'Genocide'

La casa de hojas by Mark Z. Danielewski

3 reviews

nerdkitten's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad 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

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Grief, Stalking, Car accident, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Child death, Rape, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Excrement, Medical content, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Gaslighting, and Alcohol

Minor: Ableism, Fatphobia, Genocide, Incest, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Racism, Vomit, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, and War

mathewsc23's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Drug use, Genocide, Mental illness, and Death of parent

funmilayo's review against another edition

When I first started reading this book I was really excited because I never read anything quite like it. The storyline seemed very complex, mysterious and overall intriguing. The main reason as to why I was so excited to read this book however, was that I had read an abundance of reviews that described this book as one of the scariest stories ever. It wasn't. There were a few parts where the author tried to build up tension and did so quite interestingly (by influencing the reading speed through word placement and the format of certain passages). However, in the end all of these attempts fell completely flat and left you wanting more so that the book would eventually live up to its hype...which it really didn't. In regards to the scariness of the story: the only truly scary part of this book was the absolutely disgusting misogyny.  Mark Z. Danielewski absolutely cannot write complex female characters (Imagine Haruki Murakami but make it ten times as misogynistic!). The only "personality trait" these women had was trauma and their entire personality seemingly revolved around the male characters (Johnny in particular). There's this really horrible passage that is litteraly just page after page of Johnny detailing the traumatic experiences of every woman he's ever met in extreme detail. Lots of male authors are into using trauma/abuse of women as a plot device (because a womans pain is apparently the only substantial thing about her) but Danielewski doesn't even use the trauma for the plot...it has absoulutely nothing to do with anything which makes it all the more disturbing. There were a few passages that were somewhat interesting but not enough to redeem the overall theme and style of the story. Johnny is a literal incel and it makes me sick to read about his thoughts and actions and the lack of reflection and discussion of the extremely misogynistic content of this book is incredibly alarming. Obviously I wasn't expecting a feminist manifesto from this book but I also wasn't expecting an incel manifesto so... .
In conclusion: the idea for the story and the interesting concept and layout seemed really promising but fell through completely. I cannot and will not reccomend this book to anybody. There's much better (psychological) horror books and stories out there that are scary without being completely dehumanizing.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Mental illness, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Sexual harassment