Reviews tagging 'Torture'

Papillon by Henri Charrière

5 reviews

stindex's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

1.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Homophobia, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Slavery, Torture, Xenophobia, Cannibalism, Religious bigotry, and Injury/Injury detail

daddylonglegz's review

adventurous emotional inspiring reflective slow-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Death, Torture, Violence, Police brutality, and Murder

seforaflorian's review

adventurous challenging dark inspiring reflective fast-paced

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Police brutality, Dementia, Grief, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail

celiagpiserra's review against another edition

adventurous challenging inspiring

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture and Murder

katzilla99's review

adventurous medium-paced

2.0

Henri was clearly a storyteller, not a writer. This was all very stream of consciousness with him saying things like "Oh, I'll talk about this later" or "This character dies a few days later but here is more of my interaction with them". Switched to the audiobook half way through and enjoyed that more I think due to Papillon's style, but I still didn't love it. Papillon was likely a very charismatic guy, but he added a lot of embellishment and hyperbole, I'm sure. Other than the writing style, I didn't like the homophobic slurs that were present throughout the book or that there were only a few female characters and two of them didn't even speak the same language as Papillon so they were really just bodies for him to have sex with. This really showed the misogyny present in Papillon which made sense with the time. I know that this is based on a true story so it's not like he could have added fictitious women, but it was still one of the reasons that I didn't enjoy this book as much as I wanted to. 
This story had good examples of hope, hard work, and adventure, but not one that I would recommend to anyone or ever reread.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Cursing, Death, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual content, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Cannibalism, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail