Reviews tagging 'Death'

Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones

21 reviews

drossg's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

I’m not much of a horror guy, but I really enjoyed what this book was using horror to do and the more I think about it the more I like it.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Confinement, Death, Gore, Torture, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Cannibalism, Murder, Alcohol, and Classism

Moderate: Grief and Death of parent

Minor: Bullying

nicosta_music's review

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

5.0

As someone who is a connoisseur of werewolf novels, Mongrels immediately became one of my favorites. It starts off pretty slow and unremarkable as far as these kinds of books go, but by the end I was absolutely in love. The book has such strong and hard-hitting themes about human (or I guess non-human) nature and about how you define yourself, especially by those you surround yourself with. This book is definitely gory and brutal and doesn't pull any punches, but it performs in a way that really hammers home the wisdom it is imparting.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Confinement, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Kidnapping, Grief, Cannibalism, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child death, Cursing, Gun violence, Rape, Medical content, and Alcohol

Minor: Bullying and Vomit

booksthatburn's review against another edition

Focuses too much on a particular topic that's triggering to me.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Death, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Violence, Death of parent, and Pregnancy

nerodyne's review

challenging dark medium-paced

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

3.75

It's hard to put into words how I feel about Mongrels. It definitely provided a take on werewolves that I haven't really ever seen before, and I think that had I read this book as a kid it would have changed something in me. The moving all the time, living paycheck to paycheck, living in shitty run down trailers and feeling like family is all you got, while worrying you aren't really the same as your family. It's definitely something I experienced in my youth, short of actually being a werewolf myself. When it comes to execution though, I struggled to fully connect with the writing style and while I usually love perspective changes and non linear stories, the ones in this felt a bit clunky and took some time to get used to. Not to mention, the story honestly got pretty nasty at times. It never felt unnecessarily obscene, it was clearly a matter of putting an animalistic lens on people, but I can't deny there were a few times I had to put down the book for a few minutes,

especially regarding the time that Libby fucked a dog and that family of werewolves broke into a Jewish cemetery to eat a recently deceased woman

. All in all, I'd probably recommend the book so long as you're someone who already likes supernatural horror to begin with. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Death, Gore, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Excrement, Vomit, Cannibalism, Death of parent, and Alcohol

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Physical abuse, and Antisemitism

eisenbuns's review against another edition

adventurous funny tense fast-paced

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

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Death of parent

Moderate: Death, Racism, and Xenophobia

Minor: Rape

aformeracceleratedreader's review

It's just so slow for me and not interesting enough. I don't want to keep trying to make myself read something I'm not even remotely enjoying at this point. I think if I had the audio it would've helped, but my library doesn't have it. The concept is cool, love werewolves, and liked the beginning a little bit, but everything about this book isn't doing it for me. 
Sucks because I loved My Heart is a Chainsaw. I'll try another book by this author and hopefully it isn't like Mongrels.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, and Blood

Moderate: Death, Gore, Gun violence, Medical content, Death of parent, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

lynxpardinus's review

dark emotional reflective sad tense

4.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Confinement, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Cannibalism, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Bullying, Domestic abuse, Racism, Sexual content, Torture, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Vomit, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Medical content, Car accident, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Drug abuse, Homophobia, and Pedophilia

Contains discussion of bestiality - as well as a scene where a werewolf in shift is mounted by a dog, albeit evidently against her will.
Antisemitism warning is just in case, for a chapter that involves a Jewish cemetery.

horrorandscience's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Gore, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Alcoholism and Domestic abuse

Minor: Pedophilia and Rape

childofmongreldogs's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

An absolutely gorgeous book in every sense of the word.

The elements of horror and sadness are so strong. Gore heavy and a difficult read in some places despite it's length and the absolute readability of it. I have so many thoughts and how the lycanthropy relates to intergenerational trauma, the mysticism of families, poverty, etc. Just absolutely masterful.

Despite the feeling of sadness I got reading the ending, it was surprising how hopeful the ending truly was. In a book that was frequently so bleak and painful, the idea that there's a possibility for a happy ending was euphoric. I don't know what to say except that this is probably my top read this year and possibly this decade.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Miscarriage, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Infertility, Physical abuse, Blood, Police brutality, Dementia, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Abandonment, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

bookwormbi's review

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I didn't get this book for most of the time I was reading it. If you're not here for a literary take on werewolves, this book isn't for you. That said, the ending absolutely made the book for me. the last two chapters finally let me know where the book was going and what it was meant to be about, and I'm going to be thinking about it for a while to come. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Gun violence, Blood, and Death of parent

Moderate: Confinement, Domestic abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, Torture, Vomit, Kidnapping, Grief, Cannibalism, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Adult/minor relationship

There's mentions of bestiality.