Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

Cows by Matthew Stokoe

92 reviews

brutallybookish's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

• 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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Gore, Sexual violence, Suicide, and Murder

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Excrement, and Vomit

arsene_reads's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense fast-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? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Vomit, Abortion, and Murder

jocelyn73c's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense fast-paced

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

3.0

I'm not a big splatterpunk reader. Extreme gore is not really my thing. This book really pushed a lot of my boundaries, but that being said I thought the writing was good and there was an actual message about male isolation and dominance over others that I thought was well illustrated. I won't ever read it again, but I'm not mad I read it this one time.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Self harm, Sexual content, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

This is a splatterpunk book and probably should not be read by someone who isn't familiar with the genre. It's very graphic and challenging.

spphynx's review against another edition

challenging dark fast-paced

• 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

5.0

Absolutely the worst and best book I’ve read so far this year. Very challenging. I mean, really wow, what the fuck.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Gore, Rape, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, and Abortion

laboromi's review against another edition

dark sad fast-paced

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

0.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Grief, Cannibalism, Abortion, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

katiefloyd's review against another edition

challenging dark sad

1.0

Disgusting, vile, made me wanna puke. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Torture, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, and Abortion

siochaile's review against another edition

challenging dark fast-paced

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

2.75

This is definiyely a splattergore book, and one of the more extreme ones. If you enjoy books like Woom or Playground, this will be right up your alley. 

I, personally, felt kind of icky reading this, only because there was so much scat involved, and there's no real character development of our MC (not the point, I know) but I came away from this book happy that it was over, with no intention of picking up splattergore again. There's also a very graphic description of the love interest cutting an unborn fetus from her body, and it was the only emotionally resonant moment in the whole book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Suicide, and Murder

Moderate: Toxic relationship

He fucks a cow

vouija's review against another edition

challenging dark medium-paced

• 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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual content, Torture, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Abortion, Murder, and Pregnancy

alex_bousquet's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

• 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

When someone says DO NOT read this, it peaks my interest I have to see what it is about. This was so horrifying in a way I could not stop reading. I said wtf more than I ever have in a book before. 

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Content Warnings

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

challenging dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• 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 story is so disgusting, gritty, violent, dark, horrifying, and dreadful… and I loved it. There is no way my review can convey how filthy this novel is. Stokoe plunges you into this hopeless world of isolation, mania, and terror and never lets you breathe. Seriously, every page turn had me gagging. 

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.

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Content Warnings

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.