Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

26 reviews

merle98's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark informative tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Great book but I am detracting 0.5 stars for the fact that every single female character in the book is either a food-providing wife/mother, a love interest or sexual partner or being brutally raped/tortured/killed off to advance the male protagonist's plotline (or a mix thereof).  

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Death, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

space_corgi's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.75

Finishing this book took me months. And I do mean months. Do I still rate it at 4.75 stars? Yes, yes I do. 

As told in other reviews, the writing is VERBOSE. At some points, it is gratuitously verbose. But that is the voice of our narrator. An intellectual who is trying to dissect himself, but doesn’t quite get there until he is confronted with his own sins. If that sounds cool to you, you would like this book. Otherwise, this is not a spy novel. I mean, it is, but it’s more a reflection on power, control and war.

Also, I would say calling this a thriller is a stretch. You’ll be thrilled by certain passages that you want to underline, frame and paste on the folds of your brain lobes. But the pacing is slow. Arduously slow. And that doesn’t fall in line with a “thriller”. 

Now let’s hop into what wasn’t so great. The narrator’s view on women is complex and disgusting at points in the novel. The sexualization of war and disturbingly detached descriptions of women’s bodies is frankly tough to read through. It’s as if every male author who wants to be seen as intellectual subscribes to using sex/analogies to sex/sexual violence as a way to show the primitive nature of any action. Reverting to cavemen? What better way to illustrate than to bastardize all men through what (presumably) they all desire? Come on people. Let’s do better for all the women that have to read through this crap. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Racism, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Vomit and Murder

Minor: Confinement, Infidelity, Blood, and Classism

hanna_'s review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad slow-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

2.0

 This book was full of dense and confusing prose, it felt like the author was choosing words just to show off his vocabulary and not because they were good descriptions. I found the plot hard to follow, and the dramatic tone shift at the end off putting. I have never shouted “eww!” out loud so many times while reading a book. It was full of unnecessarily graphic depictions of sexual topics, pedophilic fantasies, rape, bestiality/necrophilia (wish I could unread chapter 6), bowel movements, etc that did not add anything to the plot. The only things I liked was learning a bit about the Vietnam war.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Excrement, Murder, and War

yash__leen's review against another edition

• Loveable characters? No

2.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual content, Torture, and Violence

emgulph's review against another edition

challenging dark tense slow-paced

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

4.5

Don't get me wrong, I loved this book. It was a stunning visual into the intricacies of the Vietnam war, with a refreshing focus on the crimes of all the powers involved, not taking sides. The refuges and victims of the Vietnam War are allowed to be both angry with their so-called American saviors and with their home country in disrepair.

That being said, much of the content in this work is shocking and not for the faint of heart. It's a book about war. Fresh out of finishing this, I'm sure there are content warnings I forgot to list below. There were many moments where I needed to pause and catch my breath.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Gun violence, Rape, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, and Murder

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Mental illness, and Xenophobia

Minor: Homophobia and Sexual content

waterlilyreads's review against another edition

dark emotional tense slow-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexism, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Gore, Homophobia, Sexual content, and Violence