Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara

21 reviews

lovemk's review

emotional 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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Drug use, Suicide, and Terminal illness

greenan26's review

emotional sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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: Addiction, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Transphobia, Grief, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Dysphoria, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Infidelity, Pedophilia, Rape, Suicide, Violence, Murder, Outing, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Excrement, Vomit, and Dementia

didis_diaries's review against another edition

challenging emotional sad medium-paced

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, and Violence

Moderate: Suicide

disguisedposer's review

challenging dark 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Dementia, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Outing, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, Dysphoria, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

tree_star's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

This book is really rough and hopeless. It is also really well written. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, Incest, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Terminal illness, Transphobia, and Abandonment

halaagmod's review

dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad 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

4.0

I was gifted an ARA copy of this book way back in 2018. Ever since then, I've been struggling over what exactly to say about this book. There are no words. Heartbreaking and simply magnificent.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Homophobia, Sexual assault, and Transphobia

Moderate: Drug abuse, Drug use, Hate crime, Racism, Sexual content, and Suicide

Minor: Excrement

apple_atcha_reading's review against another edition

dark emotional inspiring reflective sad 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Hate crime, Homophobia, Rape, Sexual content, Suicide, Transphobia, Medical content, Grief, and Alcohol

waytoomanybooks's review against another edition

I was assigned this book in my Contemporary Queer Literature class, and I and several of my classmates told our professor that we couldn't and wouldn't finish reading it. The book steps out of "gritty realism" and veers into "tragedy, trauma, and grief porn" a la A Little Life. Every character in the novel is graphically raped multiple times. Every underage character at one point or another enters into a "relationship" with an adult. Every character at one point or another becomes a prostitute. There is even a character that had a mummified corpse in their closet. This is not an exaggeration. I'm not putting this behind spoiler tags because I think everyone should know about this before reading it. I wish I had known! Upon realizing that we weren't going to finish the book, our professor said that if we found the first third to be horrific, then we certainly shouldn't finish the book because it "gets worse."

Grief, loss, trauma, death, rape, etc. are unfortunate parts of life, but the author seems to take almost ghoulish delight in hurting characters who are based on real people. Don't read this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gore, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Police brutality, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Lesbophobia, Outing, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Dysphoria, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

krissymcgeehan's review

challenging dark emotional funny sad fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Terminal illness, Transphobia, Violence, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Murder, Sexual harassment, and Dysphoria

emilybr's review against another edition

dark emotional funny sad 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? No

4.5

This book is devastating. I finished it weeping, such a beautiful story with a tragic ending, made even more sad by how realistic it is. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Hate crime, Homophobia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Terminal illness, Transphobia, Grief, Sexual harassment, and Dysphoria