Reviews tagging 'Violence'

This Delicious Death by Kayla Cottingham

39 reviews

astrotrains's review

adventurous dark funny fast-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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Cannibalism

Moderate: Vomit and Murder

Minor: Transphobia

dblue236's review

dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

This was a really creative idea and I was excited to dive into it, but by about halfway through it felt like there was way too much focus on teen angst and not enough on the story that COULD have been wildly entertaining and unique. And while I am never one to have a problem with representation in books, the representation here felt more like it was for the sake of it than anything else and it almost felt like an afterthought a lot of the time. With some editing and a bit of a more mature approach, this would have been a much better read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Cannibalism, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Sexual content, Vomit, and Alcohol

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

shaunashares's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Violence, Blood, and Cannibalism

Moderate: Pandemic/Epidemic

lilawsahar's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense 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

cute sapphic campy gory read, what more can you ask for? Four best friends go to a music concert in the desert. Oh and they’re all ghouls. Someone is making people ghoul-out, so the characters need to find out who and try to stop it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Misogyny, Violence, Grief, Cannibalism, Murder, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

thissagreads's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense slow-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? It's complicated

1.5

As cool as the plot line is, this is another YA that falls short of knocking the ball out the park. 

There are a lot of questions, post festival, like:

where was Val living if she ran out her parents window?? What about Jasmine’s parents? And what happened to her brother? What does daily life look, walking around as a ghoul?

 

There were also holes with the “zombie”- like universe, and the pace moved SO SLOW!!!! For a dystopian like book, I was really hoping this would be a fast pace story, with more action and less back and forth teenage romance b.s. 

But that’s what it was, in my opinion, and it was a real let down.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Cannibalism, and Abandonment

Minor: Religious bigotry and War

mfrisk's review

dark mysterious reflective 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

3.5

This book reminded me a lot of the show iZombie but make it more queer. The book follows zombie characters who similarly to that show still feel human and have human interests and desires to fit in and make a life for themselves. The book touches on queer identity through this metaphor and I think relates to the way queerness is othered and made to be something to be feared.

 I think the concept and world building was really well done I just wished I felt more finality with all of our characters and not just Celeste and Zoe. I’d recommend the read but the pacing and details like this that didn’t feel fleshed out to me are what dinged it a bit. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Violence, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Forced institutionalization

perth_is's review

dark funny fast-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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Deadnaming, Death, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Cannibalism, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

corsetedfeminist's review

adventurous dark mysterious 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? No

4.0

This book is the campy queer horror that I needed. 

Featuring a friend group made up of a bisexual, a bi trans woman, a Black lesbian, and a token straight Latina girl, it is set in a post zombie adjacent apocalypse that created a group of people who can only survive on either human flesh or a lab crates equivalent. Everything is just a happy summer girl’s trip until it descends into part horror movie, part mystery. 

This book is incredibly fun, and I desperately need a good movie adaptation. 

Special shout out to the fact that despite the broad queer diversity, there’s exactly one mention in the entire book of transphobia- the conflict in the book all comes from the monster situation and a very precious childhood friends to lovers romance. As much as I love books that address homophobia and transphobia, sometimes it’s delightful to read a book where that isn’t the problem, it’s people turning into monsters. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Violence, Cannibalism, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

emsxrenee's review

adventurous mysterious fast-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Blood, and Cannibalism

Moderate: Death, Violence, Vomit, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Deadnaming, Transphobia, and Pandemic/Epidemic