Reviews tagging 'Sexism'

This Delicious Death by Kayla Cottingham

12 reviews

abicaro17's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

I adored the storyline of this book! Four best friends, Zoey, Celsete, Valeria, and Jasmine, are what are know as Hollow. The Hollowing was a viral ghoul contagion that turned part of the population into flesh eating monsters. As a solution, scientists developed SynFlesh, synthetic human flesh. As the girls head to a Southern California music festival for the weekend, weird things begin to happen, starting with Val attacking and eating one of the performers. I love that this focused on all four girls and their journeys from normal, to hungry flesh eating ghoul, to reformed and relatively normal Hollow person. I think the fun girls trip turned murder mystery zombie adventure is hilarious and hugely engaging. My issues stem from the chronology. This book would flash forward and backward between each girl pretty frequently. The issue is the different times were not explicitly stated so it became a tad confusing. Also Zoey was the main character but shared the stage (she should either been telling this in first person or had a more equally divided story). 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Biphobia, Body horror, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Kidnapping, Grief, Cannibalism, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

sweetteaandfiction's review

dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-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? Yes

4.5

This Delicious Death by @kcottcan

This book was gifted to me by my bby girl, Cait; and I tore into it once I sat down to read it. 

PROS: 

🧟‍♀️Solid World Building

🧟‍♂️Well placed flashbacks and inserts at the beginning of the chapters that helped you feel more connected to the characters in the present or give you a better idea of what is going on outside our main character’s POV. 

🧟‍♂️Celeste is an icon. 

🧟‍♀️varied LGBTQIA+ representation 

🧟‍♂️a new-ish, unique take on zombies 

🧟‍♀️Best friends to soulmates 

🧟‍♂️Found family 

CONS: 

🧟‍♂️The fact people could find time to be racist, sexist, or homophobic during a literal zombie apocalypse felt a little too real for me. 

🧟‍♀️It felt a little Deus Ex Machina at times when certain things just happened to conveniently appear or be there when needed, but my biggest gripe with this is that I wanted MORE of the characters and things getting neat little ribbons was stopping that. 

🧟‍♂️Capitalism making its way into what she be considered medical treatment (ie SynFlesh) 

🧟‍♀️People peopling their way through the apocalypse 

🧠🧠🧠🧠 / 4.5 out of five SynFlesh brains for this cute little fast paced LGBTQIA+ horror pick

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Violence, Cannibalism, and Murder

Moderate: Misogyny and Sexism

Minor: Bullying, Confinement, Deadnaming, Homophobia, Transphobia, Antisemitism, and Lesbophobia

reading_rogue13's review

funny hopeful fast-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gun violence, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, Cannibalism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

wrensreadingroom's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Cannibalism, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Deportation, 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

hadadelamiopia's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

This book was a lot better than I expected. It’s VERY gory so it’s perfect for halloween, but it also has some funny moments, so it’s a nice balance. It’s also pretty short and very readable, I had a hard time putting it down sometimes.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Grief, Cannibalism, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Sexism and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Deadnaming and Transphobia

bubblepricks's review

adventurous dark mysterious relaxing tense 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? It's complicated

4.5

This book was 110% written by Tina Belcher & you can not convince me otherwise. 
a lil cheeky, a lil horny, & a lil gory- I really enjoyed flying through this book & I would read more about the word of Hollow people. 

ALSO the paperback print comes with a list of content warnings at the very beginning- thank you Kayla! 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Confinement, Deadnaming, Death, Drug use, Eating disorder, Gun violence, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Cannibalism, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Dysphoria, and Pandemic/Epidemic

cuteasamuntin's review

dark lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

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

3.75

The concept is extremely cool, and I would try out other books by this author! This was definitely a great YA book. There were places where I wanted to see more and places that felt bare to me, but I think that’s more a consequence of my having grown up beyond the age of the book’s target demographic. 

I found myself wishing this book was a little longer and a little more slowly paced so I could explore the world more (and maybe get a  better feel for any characters so they would feel more three-dimensional and real). The queer rep was pretty cool, and I appreciated the author’s use of gender-inclusive language throughout.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Sexism, Forced institutionalization, and Blood

Moderate: Death, Gore, Grief, Cannibalism, Murder, and Abandonment

Minor: Deadnaming

taelights's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious tense medium-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? Yes

2.5

The concept and world was interesting, but the execution wasn't the best. Honestly the writing wasn't the best and I think this book could have been shorter because it dragged a lot and kept losing my attention. I wanted to dnf but like I lost interest after the 50% mark so I felt like I had to finish it at that point but it took me forever because I kept not wanting to listen to it after a chapter or two. 

The book was predictable and cheesy, but not even in a fun way. Plus I HATED all the scenes with Cole. The only thing worse than a love triangle is when one love interest is a woman and the other is a man. It makes the love triangle trope 10× more unbearable. Like I am all for characters being bi and having bi rep. But there is a difference between mentions of them being bi or finding a man attractive vs full het makeout and flirting scenes which I don't want to read in a book that was marketed as having a sapphic romance thanks. Like the amount of content between Zoey with Cole was about equal to that with Celeste when I only cared about the Celeste x Zoey content. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Sexism, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Grief, Cannibalism, Murder, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury and Alcohol

Minor: Deadnaming, Drug use, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Transphobia

Death of Family Member, Death of Sibling, Death of grandparent, Drugging, Needles

itsalina's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Blood, Cannibalism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Death, Transphobia, Grief, Murder, and Alcohol

Minor: Drug use, Sexism, Sexual content, and Toxic friendship