Reviews tagging 'Fatphobia'

The Ritual by Adam L.G. Nevill

35 reviews

pastelbread's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Death, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Stalking, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

bumblebeefarts's review against another edition

 It just seems like the author really dislikes both fat people and women. Don’t even get him started on fat women. 

On top of all that, it’s way longer than it needed to be. Broken up by some scary moments in the first half that made me hope it would be worth finishing. This hope was unfounded. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Ableism, Fatphobia, Misogyny, and Sexism

Minor: Alcoholism and Alcohol

seapotatohowisitalrtaken's review

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Violence, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death

thanatotics's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Fatphobia and Misogyny

chessakat's review

challenging dark tense slow-paced

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

3.0

I feel like this was almost two books smashed together. I greatly preferred the first half - so scary and atmospheric! Lots of dread but also just magic, friend tension, drama. 

The second half just epically needed an editor - I think I just got EXTREMELY fatigued by the high state of tension. Like, you can only feel despair and hopelessness for so long before my brain is just like, please, for the love of dog, make something plot-y happen again. It just dragged so so much. I think I just strongly preferred the supernatural scary to the humans. They were so banal.

By the time the end came I was so ready for it to be over that finally seeing the monster was just like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . 

Curious to see the movie adaptation, as I heard it diverges from the book quite a bit.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Fatphobia, Gore, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

hick's review against another edition

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia

aleenareadeena's review against another edition

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body shaming, Fatphobia, and Misogyny

owlribbon's review against another edition

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Fatphobia and Religious bigotry

giggles692's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Fatphobia, Homophobia, Misogyny, Racism, and Sexism

cuppachaii's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

The Ritual was fun! It's like Call Of The Wild had a Lovecraft-inspired fanfiction written by a guy who only wears Patagonia. While I found myself thinking about it when we were apart, the actual experience reading would sometimes drag. This might be due to the fact that I can't visualize, and Adam really leans on visuals to get his ideas across. I found myself getting turned around during fast paced sequences, and many of the scares flew over my head because of how imagery-oriented they are. Don't get me wrong, I still got some good scares in (

I shat myself when he realized Moder had been stalking behind him and Dom was long gone, for example

) especially in Adam's amazing non-visual descriptions, like the soundscape and textures of

the attic

. The characters don't develop so much as their existing dispositions are recontextualized, which I loved. Luke's anger is obviously out of place in London, but instead of just trope-ily going "but in the wild it's an  a s s e t" Adam instead constantly puts Luke in new situations where this anger can mean survival OR death. And while I absolutely loved the scares of

the body in the truck bed, or the goat legs on meemaw

you know what scares I DON'T love?? Fatphobia. Oh my gOd this book has so much pointless, distracting fatphobic moments. Several times, even during the rad climax, Adam couldn't help taking a few lines to remind us how unattractive he thought this fat person looked while fighting for their life through an ancient wood, home to long-forgotten horrors older than any gods for which we still have names, older than names at all. THERE'S MORE INTERESTING STUFF IN THIS FOREST THAN CELLULITE, FRIEND.

All in all, I enjoyed this book and think it's worth reading if you're a fan of horror. It has a lot of cool ideas, and explores themes of nature, survival, and humanity in ways I haven't seen before. For real one of the best contemporary depictions of cosmic horror, and as a former Pretentious Lovecraft Teen, I oohoohoohoo!-d at that. 

Love you bye

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Gore, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Death and Fatphobia

Minor: Homophobia