Reviews tagging 'Vomit'

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

11 reviews

gondorgirl's review

adventurous challenging emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Pandemic/Epidemic, Blood, Death, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Excrement, Rape, Vomit, Animal death, Classism, Colonisation, Bullying, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Religious bigotry, and Terminal illness

peggyd's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

This is a bleak book that I read at the wrong time, picking it up right after I finished another bleak book (Demon Copperhead) and so I definitely need a break from bleak books. But I didn't know that when I started this. 

Having said that, it's a Lauren Groff book, so it's beautifully written. Really just stunning prose from start to finish. I smelled the often vile smells, I could feel the bugs, fleas, and lice crawling on me and setting up shop in my clothes. I could see the beauty of nature: the waterfalls, the budding trees, the forest canopy, the birds diving and telling their stories. It's an immersive story. 

Lamentations (AKA Zed) is on the run. Her mistress's vile new husband (a priest, natch) dragged them across the Atlantic to the new world and a fort where everyone is starving. After the death of her charge, the child Bess, Zed sees something vile, grabs up what little she can, steals her mistress's heavy cloak and gloves and RUNS. This is a story of survival; it's also a coming of age story for Zed who starts with a deep faith in God that gradually shifts as she looks at this new world with more experienced eyes. Each encounter, each struggle wears her down while also opening her up to a deeper understanding of herself, her past (spoiler: also bleak), and, ultimately, the brutality of the natural world, even as she grasps that colonization will only blight out its beauty and possibility. 

We are just with her (and a few fearsome men), running with her, wondering where it could possibly end. For me, it ended how I expected--bleak--but the beauty of getting there and the beauty of the final lines, well, whew, they blew me away. Truly, I think Lauren Groff is a genius to make me love a book as relentless as this one.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Sexual assault, Vomit, and Excrement

whitjobo's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective 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? No

4.5

Following this layered telling of a young girl who escaped her colonial village was...heartbreaking. For every snippet of kindness you discover, be prepared to be pummeled by what comes next. Lauren Groff's writing is exquisite and fits the harsh landscape of colonial America. I have been left pondering some of the insights from the narrator since listening to this audiobook. Each chapter is a short snippet from her life told out of order. Both beautiful and devastating. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse and Cannibalism

Moderate: Vomit, Child death, and Murder

flowchelle's review

adventurous dark mysterious fast-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? It's complicated

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Cannibalism, Chronic illness, Colonisation, Death, Terminal illness, Vomit, Ableism, Child abuse, Child death, Murder, Suicide attempt, and Excrement

elzbethmrgn's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark reflective tense fast-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? Yes

2.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Excrement, Pandemic/Epidemic, Vomit, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cannibalism, Colonisation, Death, Rape, Sexual assault, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Cannibalism, Child death, and Murder

theabee's review

adventurous challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Vomit, Animal death, Child death, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Violence, Torture, Trafficking, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, Abandonment, and Colonisation

fiberreader's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Excrement, and Injury/Injury detail

hmatt's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective tense fast-paced

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

3.75

Lauren Groff's prose, as always, is viscerally descriptive and beautiful. This is such an interesting follow-up in juxtaposition to Matrix, as well: The main characters are both Christian women who are both, in a sense, left to fend for themselves in a remote place, but they are very, very, different.

I am a person who likes books that don't have a whole lot of plot, so I was fine with that aspect - but beware if you're not. There are some introspections the girl had that feel a bit too on-the-nose for me (i.e. a bit too "woke", lol), but otherwise I found this a fun, short, atmospheric read.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Colonisation, Child abuse, Confinement, Excrement, Religious bigotry, Death, Gore, Ableism, Terminal illness, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Sexism, Animal death, Blood, Classism, Grief, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Vomit

Moderate: Cannibalism

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Stalking, and Death of parent

elficus's review

adventurous challenging dark sad

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Ableism, and Cannibalism

Moderate: Violence, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Murder, Rape, Vomit, and Excrement

ellbutler's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Cannibalism, Vomit, and Excrement