Reviews tagging 'Gore'

The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez

28 reviews

brinipor's review

adventurous dark emotional tense 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

5.0

WOWOWOWOW! This is one of the best books I've read in a minute! It's not for everyone, but it was for me! Normally, I don't like dense, slow-paced books, but this one had so much happening that I was having a grand old time. If you are into frame stories, messy characters, and don't mind second-person narration and hearing from all perspectives, I'd give this a try.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Death, Cannibalism, Gore, Violence, and Ableism

Moderate: Kidnapping, Excrement, and Injury/Injury detail

jesslinnea's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Body horror, Murder, Blood, and Death

Moderate: Gore, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, and Cannibalism

Minor: Animal death, Cursing, Confinement, Sexual content, Torture, and War

Gore is not a main component of this book, so the detail is usually minimal. However violence and death/murder are very commonplace.

nolemdaer's review

gave up on this one with its intense, gory descriptions of cruelty - like we get it, empire bad, men mean, oppression sucks. it was like the radiant emperor duology but more "teehee this is ~experimental" overall and thus became grating. like WE GET IT i don't need to hear how another person was randomly brutalized in some creative graphic way to understand that the emperor sucks. it was giving torture porn lowkey and the tone of the whole book is so "fairy tale" (i guess) or, perhaps more aptly, "mythology" that this becomes a series of stock characters being tortured for the vibes rather than a true look into the viciousness of empire and evil. everything was told; the main characters had no discernible inner life at this point; and none of the victims were humanized any more than to make you feel bad when they died gruesomely. the whole book was like a cartoon of a commentary on oppression and was never tied down enough to make that mean something, if it was supposed to.

i didn't mind the perspective switches as much as i might have and didn't find them difficult to track, but eventually all the headings and the italicized first-person plural bits got more egregious than interesting. some bits were clever (the egg timer?) but all the frame stories dragged. nothing here felt real; nothing was anchored to an actual character or feeling. i wasn't going to sit through 400 more pages of pantomiming a story with something to actually say about violence and pain other than that they happen when your ruler is a nutso sadist

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, and Violence

md3732's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad 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

4.5!! at first i was a little put off by the line break transitions — i feel like those are an important part of good style — but as the story went on it started to feel like a reasonable choice rather than a cop out. good story that balances complexity with pace, fort in a way that creates believable antagonists, lovely world building and creation of mythology

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore

selenatothemax's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cannibalism, Violence, War, Torture, Ableism, Gore, Blood, Death, Grief, Incest, Murder, and Forced institutionalization

cozyscones's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Cannibalism, Animal death, Violence, Gore, Domestic abuse, Murder, Animal cruelty, Ableism, and Death

Moderate: Torture, Excrement, Vomit, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Misogyny

sunjaybooks's review

adventurous dark emotional inspiring slow-paced

5.0

This book has it all! Gender, family trauma, psychic tortoises, ableism, gay sex, moral ambiguity, genocide, the broad scope of history, magic and myth. It's beautifully written and also deeply deeply violent and yet still humanistic in its portrayal of the aggressors, victims, and all the morally ambiguous people in between.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Sexual assault, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Excrement, War, Ableism, Alcoholism, Gore, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Classism, Self harm, Suicide, and Genocide

stinkyleaf's review

adventurous dark hopeful sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

Slowish start. Captivating style and narration. Dark and brutal depiction of Old Country life and death, very violent. Original legend/ mythology shines through

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Slavery, Death, Child death, Animal death, Excrement, War, Torture, Gore, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

vigil's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Violence, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Abandonment, War, Death, Body horror, Animal death, Child abuse, Murder, Blood, Death of parent, Cursing, Confinement, and Alcohol

ostenreal's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

5.0

I finished this book earlier this year, and it has easily become one of my favorite books of all time. The narratives have been written with reckless abandon as it switches wildly between first, second, and third POV: first, being the character's thoughts; second, being you, the reader, as you listen to your abuela's tale and enter the dream world; third, being Keema and Jun's story.

Spoiler

What's also incredible is how this entire book spans five days. That's it - five days for characters to be thrown into a whirlwind of adventure and fall in love. And really, it's not all about love as much as it is about two people learning to trust each other due to circumstance. Three sons, three terrors. I find that the second terror was the worst: heartless and desperate to a violent degree. To slaughter the god of turtles and eat it fully, and then to try to consume your own mother - it's vile. I almost expected the third son to be the worst, the greatest hurdle of them all. However, he ended up being the one I pitied the most.  

The ending was a fantastic build-up, where Keema and Jun stop the wave, and the moment the spear cuts through the water, I had chills. It's always invigorating to have the title of a book appear somewhere in the novel.

 

I honestly believe that the book is a literary masterpiece. It's creative to an insane degree, written so beautifully, and is what I'd categorize as art. I haven't stopped recommending this book to anyone who'll listen to me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, Death, and Gore