Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Veniss Underground by Jeff VanderMeer

14 reviews

foldingthepage_kayleigh's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious 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

2.0

I requested to review this book because I loved Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy. That series was so atmospheric, filled with dread on every page, and one of those unusual trilogies where the second book is the best.  I’m not really a sci-fi person, but I thought this book would be different, since I enjoyed the apocalyptic, ecological horror style of VanderMeer’s work in the past. But I hate to say it, but I did not like this one 😬

A lot of this book was either incomprehensible to me or contained content that I have a particularly hard time with. I struggle with body horror elements in books, and this one had such a heavy focus on medical content, with grotesque, gory descriptions of genetic engineering into “living arts” just had me skimming over large swaths of the story. 

Also, I think this book was just too smart for me. There’s this exploration of language, narrative structure, and biblical references (I think?) that went way over my head, and not in a way that I could appreciate. I would say that reading the new foreword by Charles Yu helped lay out the strong points of this novel, and the different themes to pull out from it, and I did like that. I think reading this foreword is really required reading for those planning to pick up this book.

Overall, I think that this was a well-written book that was a case of just not for me. I think this book is still worth picking up if you like: 

• Medical sci-fi
• Experiments with writing styles and different ways of communicating 
• Futuristic, dystopian world-building

Thanks Penguin Randomhouse Canada for this gifted copy, I’m sorry I didn’t like this one more 🫣

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Sexual content

sonja_mueller's review against another edition

adventurous dark reflective sad fast-paced

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

3.5

3,5 stars. The read of the main story was a intense experience and could have been 4,5 stars. I was first thrown off by the extreme suffering and violence until it clicked. It really is a story about hell and descend to even more gruesome levels of hell. It is extremely well written in my opinion and immersed me completely in the reading experience.
I was disappointed by the end though which went anticlimactic for me. And to me personally the Acknoledgements in which the backstory is explained made it even worse. Instead of being left with an impactful read the end and these commentary faded the experience out. 
Heavy content warning for torture, animal torture, body horror, violence...

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Torture, and Violence

zworlund's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, and Murder

chimera999's review against another edition

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death and Death