Reviews tagging 'Hate crime'

This Delicious Death by Kayla Cottingham

8 reviews

9brightshiners's review

adventurous dark emotional 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

4.5

Mostly enjoyed this one! The everyday horror of transforming into and living as a 'monster' felt realistic and well thought out. Many elements of the plot and resolution depended upon privileged characters in a way that prevented me from feeling truly immersed or connected with characters at times. There is some aspect of found family in this story, but to me it felt disjointed and ultimately acted as a springboard for romantic relationships. Overall this was a queer teen coming of age story with a solid plot, emotional depth, and a mix of existential horror and gore that kept me engaged and rooting for the main characters. I appreciated the chapters from other characters' POVs and the media quotes and clippings from the fictional pandemic. They added a lot to the world building and helped build empathy and establish motivation for characters that wouldn't be possible if everything was from main character Zoe's perspective.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Blood, Vomit, Cannibalism, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Mental illness, Religious bigotry, and Medical trauma

Minor: Deadnaming, Drug use, Eating disorder, Forced institutionalization, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol

The fictional monsters (ghouls) in this book are humans who underwent mutations during a pandemic and were driven to cannibalism. They are able to live human-like lives because of the creation of lab grown human meat. Trauma from the pandemic, discrimination against ghouls, internalized shame, gore, and body horror are prominent throughout the book. Most main characters are queer, one is trans, some are POC and real world discrimination against these identities also exists in this book. Frequent underage alcohol use. Drug use is nonconsensual (drug is fictional). Hate crime is against fictional identity specific to book.

lovelynovellas's review against another edition

emotional 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Deadnaming, Death, Gore, Hate crime, Blood, Police brutality, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

vrsmith0429's review

adventurous medium-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? Yes

3.0

The way that the Ghouls were described reminded me of the Zombies in Warm Bodies

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Hate crime, Cannibalism, Murder, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Death, Vomit, Medical content, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Deadnaming

aingealwroth's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Blood, Cannibalism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Hate crime and Misogyny

Minor: Deadnaming, Drug use, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, and Vomit

kenziehath's review

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Chronic illness, Death, Gore, Hate crime, Misogyny, Blood, Cannibalism, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

macyplier's review

funny tense medium-paced

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

3.0

Really cool concept and such cute friendships and wlw romance. Hated the lesbian character being in love with a straight girl trope (you win some you lose some). The plot twist was really predictable and even though the book came with a trigger warning page it didn’t talk about the racism in the book? Which is off-putting to me especially when reading from non-black authors, paired with the first three pages being like, “This is Zoey, this is Zoey’s Black friend, this is Zoey’s white friend, and this is Zoey’s Latina friend”. Like it just gave me an icky feeling having the characters introductions being reduced to their race. I don’t know if maybe I had a bad copy because there was also some grammatical errors and my epilogue chapter says “ehilogue” so idk. All that aside it was still a fun story to read, I just don’t think I’ll be picking up anything else from this author.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Racism, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Blood, Grief, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

sav_22's review

adventurous dark funny hopeful medium-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

4.25

This was a fun ride! It’s a perfect balance of horrifying and endearing. The main group is a group of girls trauma bonded by the event that changed the world known as The Hollowing. I found all of the girls to be relatable and intriguing to get to know; even when it mainly follows a first person one narrator format, we get pov switches in the form of flashbacks in 3rd person to dive into other characters. There’s romance and a hint of a love triangle, but I would say that it is very much a subplot to the overall plot. All of the four main characters are sapphic, which to me is something I always appreciate when writers realistically write queer people sticking together.

There are some questions left unanswered imo, and it’s kind of an open ending, but it doesn’t deter from the overall satisfaction of the book for me. There are some intense horror elements like body horror and gore, but it wasn’t overdone or overzealous. I really enjoyed reading the evolution of the main couple, even if it wasn’t a major focus and it was predictable I think that it complimented the story and themes well.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Gore, Racism, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Cannibalism, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, and Grief

Minor: Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Transphobia, Forced institutionalization, and Death of parent

lovelydeadgirl's review against another edition

funny 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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Deadnaming, Hate crime, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Cannibalism, and Injury/Injury detail