Reviews tagging 'Forced institutionalization'

The Bat by Jo Nesbø

4 reviews

muravyevaa's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

1.0

Barely made it through the book. I decided to pick it up because I have heard many people praise Jo Nesbø’s later books. This one, however, is a weird one, at some point it was so bad it was good, but overall I would not recommend this book. Every character is a caricature. Women are either fat, annoying and undesirable by the main character or sexy, young, and cheerful. They are also very “written by men”, I laughed so hard at some intimate scenes, it felt like a teenager was commissioned to try and imagine how adults date. There was so much racism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism within the first 30 books, I almost DNF the book. The story itself was kinda boring and not well told or developed. The choice of a killer and their motives also made me go “this is definitely written by a white dude in the 90s”. Honestly, skip this one and read the ones in the series that are actually good 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Car accident, Murder, and Alcohol

Moderate: Body shaming, Colonisation, and Classism

ekmook's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-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

1.0

I don’t even know where to begin with how deeply offensive and problematic this entire book was…even for 1997.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Blood, and Alcohol

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Body shaming, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Grief, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail

nieva098's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Murder, and Alcohol

Minor: Body shaming, Death, Drug use, Fatphobia, Genocide, Forced institutionalization, Grief, and Colonisation

ran_sophia's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Surprising to me was who the perpetrator was.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism and Death

Moderate: Racism and Murder

Minor: Forced institutionalization and Colonisation