Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite

13 reviews

shirumoon's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

2.25

I did NOT read this back in the day as a teenager, in fact I just read Lost Souls as a 27 y.o. Since many of the really positive reviews acknowledge at least some nostalgia playing a role in that, I felt the need to point this out.

Anyways, this is one of the first horror novels I read as an adult und the very first of this author. Everyone online seemed to be hyping this book up for its poetic prose and yup, it was well written. Deranged smut lovers will also get their fix here even though those scenes are kept rather short. Other than that, it was also interesting to see a book with an abundance of queerness, although it did contain some problematic tropes and languge regarding that.

Now onto the aspects that I really disliked unfortunately:

This book in general barely made me feel anything, there were a few cute moments between characters who are friends and about two genuinely scary ones that felt like well done

supernatural

horror. Other than that it was mainly

roadtripping, substance abuse and vampires being vampires  

  which is just not enough to keep me engaged. The pseudo-dark and depressed goth subculture vibe made it even harder to get through and to relate to the characters but like I said, I'm just not the main demographic of this book. I jsut would have wished for some earnest interoception of the characters and for less redundance in certain plot points, this could have added at least one more point in my rating.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Drug abuse, Gore, Incest, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Vomit, Abortion, Murder, and Alcohol

Moderate: Ableism, Biphobia, Self harm, and Pregnancy

Minor: Cancer, Toxic relationship, Grief, and Car accident

reaperreads's review against another edition

challenging dark hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Body horror, Cancer, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Homophobia, Incest, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Cannibalism, Stalking, Abortion, Murder, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Alcohol

sigynmoon's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Incest, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Ableism and Misogyny

joonjxne's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Incest, Rape, Sexual violence, Violence, Vomit, Abortion, Murder, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Child death, Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Racism, Toxic relationship, and Kidnapping

Minor: Child abuse, Homophobia, Infidelity, and Terminal illness

menderash's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense fast-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

4.0

Lost Souls is my first Poppy Z Brite book, but it won't be my last.

Mr Brite has a knack for writing books about horrible people doing horrible things, often for little to no reason, with minimal plot except to make the next horrible thing happen. His main characters are all murderers, rapists, cannibals, necrophiles, or the people who love them anyway. The prose is a means to an end; the end being the reader's hopeful erotic satisfaction of reading someone get nearly decapitated in vivid, lovingly described detail.

Brite's books (the two I've read) seem to hold no greater point than to either turn you on or gross you out, probably both. The violence is pointless, the plots are pointless, the morals are hopeless. But you know what? Brite is such an emotionally charged, evocative, talented writer, that I can't help but be hypnotized by his ability to make me sit down and devour a novel in one sitting. He makes me care about the few morally sound characters even though I know something unspeakable is about to happen to them. He explores the nuance of monstrosity in his uhh. Less morally sound characters.

I think my most sound, least hypocritical criticisms of Brite's work is a) his exploitation of real victims of real tragedies and b) his handling or lack thereof of characters of color. The few non-white characters in his work are relegated to the occasional dead body, future victim, or stereotyped backdrop. Then again, considering the kind of character Brite centers as his protagonists, do I really want him, as a white man, to portray a character of color that way? I'm fine with Brite's beloved monsters being mostly white men.

TL;DR: Absolutely disgusting. Awesome ride. Will read again.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Death, Drug use, Gore, Incest, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Blood, Cannibalism, Car accident, Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Animal death, Self harm, and Toxic friendship

gb24741's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore and Violence

Moderate: Incest and Sexual violence

kalira's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

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

1.75

This is very deeply grungy '90s horror, which despite the lavishly (lovingly, one might say) described . . . everything - horror, blood, injury, drugs (so, so many drugs), abuse, rape, nightmares, murder, and so on - within its pages . . . nothing of that feels terribly present. At least for me, most of it was at most disturbing of the cringe and blegh stripe if anything, not the kind of horror that makes an impression or lingers.

I've seen a number of people say they might have liked this book if they'd read it as a teenager, or similar; someone else commented that 30 is too old to start reading Poppy Brite. I'm in my 30s and I can fairly confidently say that I wouldn't have enjoyed this as a teenager either . . . and the heavy content might have been enough to screw with my head more than it did reading it now.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Cannibalism, Stalking, Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Gun violence, Suicide, and Terminal illness

loz_ange's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad slow-paced

• Loveable characters? It's complicated

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Incest, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Cannibalism, Religious bigotry, Car accident, Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Abandonment, and Alcohol

Moderate: Animal cruelty and Animal death

jamiealways's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual violence, Violence, Abortion, and Murder

sofipitch's review against another edition

challenging dark slow-paced

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

1.0

I did not like this book. Half of the reason is the long list of trigger warnings I've marked below. The other half is the fact that whenever the author mentioned adult content such as sex/alcohol/drugs, it's done in such excess it seems juvenile. Just the way alcohol is described, I was REALLY surprised that the author was over 21 when this was published because it feels like it was written by a teen who has never experienced most of the things described. The book also has practically no plot, it just follows these characters around but I didn't like them. I peaked at reviews online with ppl raving about this book saying it had wonderful characters and a fast-paced well thought out plot. Like did we even read the same book?

There are also a lot of things about this book that it's less upfront about that haven't aged well, for example this book has really racist undertones, between the way it described POC, historical events, and use of the n-word. Same goes for misogyny. There's also some eating disorders thinking in the way thin bodies, constantly described with bones showing, are overly romanticized, which is why I marked eating disorder under triggers, bc the language in this book might give an impressionable goth teen one. So anything that was a triggering undertone went into the minor trigger category

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Death, Drug use, Gore, Incest, Miscarriage, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Abortion, Murder, Pregnancy, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Self harm, Car accident, Death of parent, and Abandonment

Minor: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Misogyny, Racial slurs, and Racism