Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

Delicate Condition by Danielle Valentine

50 reviews

saphira7's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

3.5

This book let me down. The writing style wasn’t really for me. I will say the body horror was on point. The build up of suspense and mystery had me on a hold. 

The story itself was great. It’s just the execution that lost me.

Although I understand the choice of everything not actually being attributed to some supernatural force in the end (as to highlight the experience women go through being gaslighted in medical care, but also in general, by mirroring it back to the reader) I can’t help but feel disappointed.

There are still many unanswered questions. The ending was a bit rushed. I remember being around the 100 pages left mark and thinking that it wouldn’t be enough to tie the loose ends. What happened to all the women in those change of POV chapters? Also the underlying message of women having to stick together came off very flat to me (in the sense of white feminism). It was a lot of talk but nothing shown. 

Overall it was a nice read. I just didn’t like how everything was tied up, or lack thereof for some things, at the end

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Gore, Infertility, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Blood, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Stalking, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

luna_98's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.25

this book was like a fever dream

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Miscarriage, Medical content, Pregnancy, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Death, Infertility, and Infidelity

bree_1019's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Infertility, Miscarriage, and Blood

Moderate: Body horror

Minor: Car accident

erinmichele_reads's review against another edition

challenging dark tense

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cancer, Confinement, Death, Gore, Infertility, Miscarriage, Blood, Grief, Stalking, Car accident, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

haley_mil_reads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• 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: Body horror, Miscarriage, Blood, and Vomit

Minor: Animal cruelty

peachani's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Car accident, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Body horror, Gore, Infertility, Medical trauma, and Gaslighting

Minor: Animal death, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Blood, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

ddrosche's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Infertility, Blood, Pregnancy, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Mental illness, Miscarriage, and Blood

readinglibraesq's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Infertility, Miscarriage, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Violence, Stalking, and Gaslighting

nicnatreads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.75

Really fun read. Oftentimes these thriller-esque books can have a “cool girl” voice that causes me to cringe to the point of a DNF. There were pieces of that here and there but it was minimal. This truly was a modern take on Rosemarys baby with many events pulled straight from that book. There were some definite differences though that I loved. I appreciated the feminist messaging throughout. The modern problems and scenarios were fun and oftentimes relatable. I liked the ending and how the story was wrapped up for the most part. It was a longer book but I enjoyed it the whole way. However the one major thing that I didn’t appreciate was the clear disgust with allopathic medicine. As someone who works within and practices allopathic/evidenced-based medicine, I’m obvs biased; however, the story had a strong position of nihilism in terms of medicine.  Many medical issues have a veil of uncertainty (aka lack of evidence) and those in the field have come to say “we don’t know” more frequently in recent years because that’s the ethical thing to do. When there’s little evidence it’s more ethical to communicate uncertainty rather than provide false hope in a cure that has little-to-no evidence. Snake oil cures have been a common scam for centuries and I think criticizing the field of medicine that has the most structured and evidence-driven guidelines isn’t really helpful. Dont get me wrong, it’s not without its flaws and should be scrutinized. But I can’t think of any alternative fields of medicine I’d trust any more than it. But I digress -

The story was still so fun and I couldn’t wait to get back each time I had to put it down. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Infertility, Miscarriage, Violence, and Pregnancy

catinseas's review against another edition

mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Infertility, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma, Car accident, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Infidelity, Sexism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Gaslighting

Minor: Animal death, Cancer, Racism, and Terminal illness

Medical misogyny, medical racism, the history of racism and abuse in medical research. There are many vignettes showing this through the past couple hundred years.