Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird by Agustina Bazterrica

23 reviews

lovelylilelle's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Pedophilia, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

marywahlmeierbracciano's review

challenging dark

5.0

For fans of Samanta Schweblin and Mariana Enríquez, Agustina Bazterrica is another Argentine powerhouse of feminist literary horror.  Much like her counterparts, Bazterrica uses horror to talk about violence against women, in many forms.  This well-rounded collection includes twenty unique and memorable stories touching on relationships, desire, Catholicism, control, endings, and more.  These stories are bold and breathtaking, dripping with blood.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Pedophilia, Grief, and Abandonment

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Incest, Self harm, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Blood, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Abortion

abbie_'s review against another edition

dark mysterious fast-paced

3.5

Thanks to Netgalley & Pushkin Press for my e-arc!

Agustina Bazterrica burst into the English-speaking literary world in 2020 with the disturbing Tender Is the Flesh, a book I loved, and her second offering in translation is a morbid collection of short stories. Nineteen Claws and a Blackbird all, more or less, focus around themes of death and dying, and I won’t lie it can weigh heavily on the reader at times!

There are some reprieves in the almost flash fiction-like stories - punchy little morsels like Roberto (a young girl finds a rabbit growing between her legs) and The Continuous Equality of the Circumference (a woman strives for her ultimate goal - to become a perfect circle) that you read in about two minutes but think about for the next hour. The rest of the stories are all also quite short (none longer than 20 pages and most around 10), so you do feel like you’re flying through it. There were a few stories that just went right over my head - the language here is quite different to Tender is the Flesh (brutal in its sparseness), with more flowery prose that meant some stories felt more like style over substance. (As a side note, Sarah Moses has translated both and I’d love to hear her thoughts on the differences between the texts!)

However, there are some heavy hitters that I loved and that truly unsettled me: The Solitary Ones, which will make you never want to ride an underground train again; Teicher Vs Nietzsche, a darkly funny stand-off between a man and his ex’s cat; and Mary Carminum, where a group of women hide something more sinister behind gaudy costume jewellery. I also loved the vibe of Elena-Marie Sandoz, which completely caught me off-guard by the end.

Overall, a solid collection which is a must-read for those of you who enjoy your short fiction on the darker side!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Gore, Pedophilia, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, and Blood