Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

Yo que nunca supe de los hombres by Jacqueline Harpman

34 reviews

_meganrose's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

This is unlike anything I have ever read. Dark. Mysterious. Chilling. Tragic. I am normally not the biggest fan of dystopian novels, but I really enjoyed this read. Only complaint is the chapters are sooooo long. Wish it would have been divided up a bit more into shorter chapters with all of the same content.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Cancer, Confinement, Death, Gore, Self harm, Suicide, Terminal illness, Blood, Excrement, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

khadijah98's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Infertility, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Suicide, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail

crodgers90's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Terminal illness, Forced institutionalization, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Death, Suicide, and Murder

Minor: Excrement, Medical content, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

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

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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. 

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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

aly97's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, and Abandonment

Moderate: Medical content

Minor: Suicide and Suicide attempt

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."

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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

liesthemoontells's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective relaxing sad medium-paced

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

4.75

This was a beautiful, haunting, moving book. I had put off reading it as the themes sounded incredibly heavy, but after a friend's recommendation and assurance that it was more of a reflective read I decided to tackle it. 

While the book's themes are complex, heavy, and at times very dark, Harpman's treatment of the subject matter is more meditative and philosophical than shock provoking. There are many ruminations on what it means to be human, on navigating love, gender, and human connection when you have been given no reference point. 

I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone who needs resolutions to their mystery fiction but if you are looking for a powerful and ambivalent piece of speculative literature I could not recommend it more.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Infertility, Mental illness, Misogyny, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Medical content, Dementia, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Murder, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Colonisation

Minor: Violence and War

clovetra's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional sad slow-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? No

5.0

this was heartbreaking. to begin with, i wasn’t sold on this book, but the more i read, the more i became invested and felt both melancholy and serenity.

i really can’t explain why this book enthralled me so much. the writing was superb, but although the protagonist lacked characterisation beyond her motivations, i was rooting for her.

usually when i review a book or contemplate my thoughts surrounding it, i like to break down my thoughts based on the writing, the plot, the characters, and how it made me feel emotionally. but this book is the first that is difficult to explain why it evoked such deep emotions in me. maybe because i can relate to the protagonist, who feels as though she is meandering her whole life. maybe it’s because i wanted to see if she would find civilisation, and how the book ends. or maybe this book is enigmatic and truly sits in its own field. i can’t say a single book ive read comes close to this one in terms of its plot & deeper themes. it is in a genre of its own, floating around on bookshelves, just like the protagonist.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Infertility, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, and Murder

Moderate: Terminal illness, Excrement, Medical content, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

jess_orjess's review against another edition

reflective slow-paced

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

3.75

This book was a lot more enjoyable than I imagine, even despite the fact the

second half of it was centered around nomadic journeys, and eventually the acceptance that simply nobody will be found, nor will she experience anything different.

I like the pacing; it was complicated for me to explain, as at some points, it was fast and skipped periods of several years, and at other points, it was slow. The lack of action, however, made the majority of it feel slow. 

I also liked the philosophical ramblings, the irony of the end, the dwindle of hope present. 

I’ve only rated it 3.75 simply because there truly wasn’t a lot of anything in the book, which was the point I know! But still, you go in expecting a great forest of adventure adventure, and find only green grass and shrubs.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cancer, Death, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Medical content, and Grief

Minor: Physical abuse, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Alcohol