Reviews tagging 'Drug abuse'

Any Man by Amber Tamblyn

5 reviews

lithoerary_atria's review

challenging dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

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

3.5

it's a very heavy book. just go into it keeping in mind all of these.

it was difficult to read. particularly the transcript of the talkshow. i was shaking and had to walk away for a couple if hours before continuing the book.

last month, a horrific incident happened in my city. more so, because in some ways it is connected to me and people like me as a collective. and it hurts to see the conversations & events that happened in real life and HAVE been happening now be so so so universal.

this was a very well written depiction of rape culture that resides in society even today and in many ways, an extremely difficult book to digest. one of my only complaints though would be the lack of voice of the trans man who was also a victim in the book. it just didn't seem fair that the voice of a trans person is the only one that apparently didn't need to be heard.

i read this in physical form as well as in audio and the cast of voice actors actually did a wonderful job. a huge hats off to them. specifically to the voice of jamar sands & ezra fisher. impeccable voice acting on their parts.

all in all, would recommend even if i had a few complaints.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Misogyny, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Drug abuse, Drug use, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Transphobia, Medical content, and Medical trauma

youmns's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

"Any Man" should come with one giant blinking red trigger warning.

Some parts read like spoken word poetry. Some are simply fiction. Almost all of it is horror, though I imagine it's well-researched and true horror. The sexual assaults are described with simultaneously less and more detail than needed to get their point across. The way people respond to the victims is horrifying. The way we alienate and vilify victims and survivors of sexual assault is horrifying.

I'm not quite sure how to rate this book, so I won't.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Body horror, Child abuse, Pedophilia, Self harm, Torture, Transphobia, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Suicide, and Blood

Giant, massive trigger warning for survivors of sexual abuse: maybe don't read this book.

hazedover's review against another edition

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Death, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical trauma, Stalking, Murder, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

wickedgrumpy's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.5

Well, I was looking for a change of pace and I think I got it.  The topic itself is hard to read about, hard to talk about, etc.

The writing was quite well done, kind of a bit of mixed media with the journal entries, chat logs, transcripts, poetry, and radio show vibes.  The first three victims were well fleshed out and their trauma was ever present and horrifying.  The later ones felt more superficial though I'm not really sure why.  There were also quite a few questions that were raised in the plot that were never answered that made it feel a bit rushed.

I do think this is a good book that has a lot of value in representing sexual assault as a whole and especially in male victims.  However, with all that in mind, I don't feel like I was the intended audience because I don't generally like to read books about rape.  I suppose I didn't expect it to be quite so graphic about it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Cancer, Cursing, Drug use, Kidnapping, Murder, Abandonment, and Alcohol

mermaidsherbet's review

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Mental illness, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual violence, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Drug use, Gore, Pedophilia, Torture, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Kidnapping, Gaslighting, and Alcohol

Minor: Alcoholism, Cancer, Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Drug abuse, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Transphobia, Excrement, Vomit, Stalking, Murder, and Pregnancy