Reviews tagging 'Cancer'

Yo que nunca supe de los hombres by Jacqueline Harpman

137 reviews

greenknightemrys's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Confinement, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Medical content, and Suicide attempt

iamcarlib's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I absolutely loved this book. Thought provoking, intriguing right from the first page, and the writing style is very different but flows so beautifully. It was a true pleasure to read. I wish I hadn't read it so that I could enjoy it all over again. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cancer, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Infertility, Self harm, Slavery, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Dementia, Trafficking, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

hanz's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

3.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Suicide, and Dementia

alyssams884's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective slow-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? Yes

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Torture, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Cancer and Grief

edamamebean's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

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

5.0

Wow. What a strange and compelling book. And so vaguely spooky too. This is a speculative fiction/sci-fi about a young woman who grows up as a captive in a bunker with thirty-nine other women. Her story begins with her coming-of-age, but really picks up when she and the other women finally escape the bunker in search of answers to why they’ve been held captive for so many years. They never do find answers. In fact, every new discovery just brings up more questions. But the book isn’t about the rules of their world. It’s more of a think-piece, interested in asking existential questions. What do things like death, time, or love mean for someone who doesn’t experience a normal human existence? What happens to a person if there’s no one left to remember them? What does womanhood mean to a woman who has never known men? I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Gore, Infertility, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Forced institutionalization, Kidnapping, and Suicide attempt

deekeiy's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

It started slow for me but that's probably because I was in a reading slump. In the end I came to love this book. Jaqueline Harpman managed to write something as simply as walking on land in such an engaging way. I really enjoyed the way it was written and the pacing a lot. It could have been a dragged out novel but instead it's this perfectly paced novella about the human condition. 

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Cancer, Death, and Suicide

hoopoebird's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad 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? No

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement

Moderate: Cancer, Death, Suicide, and Grief

Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Kidnapping

bookmuva's review against another edition

challenging emotional mysterious reflective fast-paced

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

5.0

IT’S COMPLICATED

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Confinement, Death, Suicide, Grief, and Abandonment

bloodflood's review against another edition

dark reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, and Forced institutionalization

Moderate: Cancer, Terminal illness, and Dementia

peachybee53's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-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

5.0

I Who Have Never Known Men has thrown me into an existential spiral. It is intimate, brazenly honest, relatable in its raw humanness but also extremely eerie. I enjoyed the stream-of-consciousness style which reads like a personal diary. I found it quite painful to keep going at times, but understand that that was a part of the storytelling itself. 

Our protagonist is forced to discover something, anything, which she can have control over, and thus finds herself navigating a new world of internal possibility, ideas and change. There is a disconnect between her and those around her, the outside world, her own body and mind. There are feelings of isolation, fury, confusion, and a subtle but persistent sense of survival, hope & curiosity. The acts of thought, imagination, communication & education become quiet & stubborn forms of rebellion, finding sense where there is none.

The overall feeling of this book is one of somber monotony, such as an endless void or electrical static. And yet, I am changed by having read it.

"She lost her mind in the cerebral convolutions, the mysterious nooks and crannies of the memory, she had gone backwards, seeking a world that made sense, losing her way among the labyrinths, slowly deteriorating, dimming, noiselessly being obliterated and then fading away so gradually that it was impossible to pinpoint the transition between the flickering little flame and the shadows."

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Gore, and Medical content

Moderate: Grief and Abandonment

Minor: Cancer, Infertility, Suicide, Terminal illness, Dementia, and Injury/Injury detail