Reviews tagging 'Transphobia'

The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara

29 reviews

elliejk's review

challenging dark 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? No

3.75

I really enjoyed this book for the most part. In places it felt a little stretched out and others a little rushed which left the pacing feeling slightly off. Having said that, it really is such a beautifully told story and as the reader I felt every heartbreak. The ending will be one which will take a while for me to stop thinking about for sure.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, and Transphobia

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

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

piiiesk's review against another edition

5.0

this book is amazing. I laughed, I cried, I felt for the characters. the author wrote the characters in such an understanding, warm way that you cannot do anything than love them just as much. No matter what they did, there was no shame, just showing what can (and did) happen and how different people deal with it in various ways. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Terminal illness, and Transphobia

Moderate: Child abuse and Rape

Minor: Suicide

uhhlexiconic's review

dark funny reflective 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

4.0

Perhaps losing track of the house at the center and focusing much more on individual struggle, House of Impossible Beauties was hard to put down.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Incest, Rape, Transphobia, and Grief

Moderate: Murder

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

glorifiedloveletters's review

dark emotional 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, Drug abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Sexual assault, Suicide, and Transphobia

Moderate: Incest

Minor: Deadnaming and Murder

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