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alex_bousquet's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Grief, Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, and Abandonment
glowingpages's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This book will NOT be for everyone, not even everyone in the market for grotesque horror or edgy material. I believe I appreciated it because I had to remind myself multiple times that it was just a fiction novel and I was experiencing the author’s very disturbing mind. I appreciated the ride I guess.
While I saw a commentary amongst all the muck, torture, and perversion, I cannot be for certain that there was any deeper meaning to this story than Stokoe just writing shocking shit for the fun of it.
I haven’t fully formed my interpretations into a fully fleshed out thought yet. I feel like a lot of the content was a criticism or comment on a similar aspect of reality. For instance, the egregious amount of fat phobia. The mother’s body was consistently described in ways to make you feel icky and dirty only by overemphasizing her fat, folds, and weight. However, it was so over the top, I began to feel like it was just referencing the already pervasive fat phobia that exists and turning it up to 11. Of course I could be reading into it too much and Matthew Stokoe is actually just fat phobic.
I will say, though I did enjoy the book, I could have definitely gone through it without the abhorrent torture and mutilation of the cows. I also did not care for the cow’s dialogue. The ending also left me wanting, but it could be because I didn’t understand what it was meant to symbolize.
I’ve read some great criticisms of this book here and I agree with all of them, whether they hated it or loved it. This book causes some very visceral reactions.
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail
Be warned!! This book is not for the sensitive stomach. While e this book gets very graphic and has a plethora of horrendous content, there is a larger commentary behind it all and it is very well crafted.kxtiix's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
0.5
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Blood, Excrement, Murder, and Classism
Minor: Racial slurs
crypticapricorn's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Gore, Incest, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Death of parent, and Murder
specificwonderland's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
I read some reviews of this book before I quit, wondering if it would turn out to be fruitful or have some kind of 'good' ending. What I read was not encouraging. To paraphrase, "this is a less good Animal Farm". Yeah, I don't need to debase myself like this. It's ok that I'm soft. It's ok that I get disgusted and traumatized reading about a guy fucking a girl while he guides a colonoscopy camera up (really really up) her anal canal far into her intestines while they both listlessly watch the camera footage. It's ok that I don't want to read about 6 guys punching holes in the same cow while it's alive, so they can fuck the cow holes and then murder the cow so it tenses around their dicks before they finally stop its suffering. It's ok I don't want to hear about a sadistic mother feeding her adult son rotten sheep intestines, then him making her eat his literal shit, on a plate, over and over again. And the poor helpless dog.
Wherever this book is going, it's ok that I don't want to go.
From what I did read, I felt it was one dimensional, the detached third person narration of an emotionally delayed (however rightfully so) young man. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. I paid for it , and don't even want to leave it in a FLL without a content warning on it. I feel like Tender is the Flesh tackles these ideas in less harsh ways while still being visceral.
Some questions I have at this juncture. The biggest question I have is, was the writer in on this? Did the writer do an amazing job at a character study of a depraved man or is the only way a writer could harness this much depravity is if he himself were that depraved man, saying whatever thoughts he thinks. If it's the former, there's some value in this level of repulsion. If it's the latter, I hope to never cross his path in a dark alley.
I do think the animal cruelty question opens an ethical line of questioning. Ok we can all agree THIS is too much, this is beyond the boundaries of what a cow should have to go through. How do we feel (singularly, as a society, or from the author's Australia versus my America) about factory farms? Most of us eat meat, isn't that cruel? Most of us distance ourselves as much as we can from our living breathing food. This book makes the reader look.
Humans are disgusting, even if we're not unfeeling toxic monsters. We do horrible things to animals. And guess what, we do them to each other. Men rape women. People bring guns to schools, malls, concerts, movies. America is a hella racist place to be for a person of color. England colonized a lot of the world. We treat each other horribly. Is this book beyond that? (Resounding yes for me.)
And my final question is, if it's not for me, who is this book for? I think it's for someone who wants to be pushed to their limits. I love a sad book that destroys me. If there's an audience who craves that feeling of being destroyed and levelled by a disgusting work, this is the book for that audience.
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail
pantrat's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Cannibalism, Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Racial slurs, Racism, and Rape
sommarborne's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
However, this book is oddly captivating and reads like a deeply disturbing urban fairy tale. The second half of the book reminded me a lot of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. It is better to go into this story expecting it to read like a fairy tale & to not take the story to be “realistic” in any sense of the word.
All of the characters except for Steven (the main character) are obnoxious over the top depictions of various levels of evil or hopelessness. The dialogue, in my opinion, is the worst part of the book. It is annoying to read and never gets better.
The author really spoon feeds you way too much. He doesn’t seem to trust the art of subtle storytelling or showing rather than telling. The dialogue is more fitting of a child’s story where you have to make it clear who the “bad guy” is.
It does come across like the author or, at the very least, the main character does not like women whatsoever or anything with a vagina. There is a good deal of vaginal mutilation in this book & a focus on using that as a form of reaffirming Steven’s sense of masculinity. I do think that was the point but I also feel like the author did not convey this particularly well and it made me roll my eyes several times.
I do not usually comment on the physical descriptors of characters too often, but I have to admit that the book is actually super fatphobic and I mean that for real. Steven’s mother is obese and every scene with her makes a point to mention her fatness in revolting ways meant to emphasize her “evilness” essentially. Like I said, the characters are cartoonishly bad.
There is also a super random use of the n-word for absolutely no reason and I mean NO reason. It was so out of left field I had to reread it ten times over because I kept trying to understand where it came from. The book has nothing to do with racism whatsoever & it is one of the cows that randomly says it? It is toward middleish of the book.
The violence is a bit obnoxious and it reminds me of try hards doing their best to use shock and disgust rather than writing better, but the writing itself actually is good beyond that and the development of Steven’s character arc is surprisingly well done. This might seem wild to admit given the context of this book, but Steven is a weirdly relatable main character and I have to give props to the author for that.
He isn’t relatable in the sense of the extreme and violent choices he makes, but rather he is a well done metaphor of the desire to find a community & a purpose in life when you constantly feel detatched from everything and everyone. For me, the ending of the book was incredibly satisfying and made plenty of sense. It was bittersweet in a super fucked up way.
If you can stomach it, I do think it is worth a read. It isn’t often we have these contemporary fairy tales but it really did remind me of the over the top and bizarre gore you would read in the original Grimms fairy tales & similar stories.
I found the animal violence to be fairly easy to skim without missing tangible points. While the scenes are undeniably upsetting and graphic, I will say that the violence against people in the book are definitely more graphic which I did kinda appreciate.
This is a wild read and I think the beginning and dialogue are the weakest points. This is gonna sound insane but trust me: when the cows start to talk is when the book gets more tolerable. I think a lot of interesting essays could be written about this.
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Misogyny, Sexism, Medical content, Medical trauma, Abortion, and Death of parent
Minor: Racial slurs and Abortion
rarityfemme's review against another edition
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Incest, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail
angreadseverything's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.75
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Rape, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Death of parent, Murder, and Pregnancy
ldowns1422's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
0.25
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Gore, Mental illness, Sexual content, Blood, Vomit, and Murder