Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi

12 reviews

draven_deathcrush's review

dark tense medium-paced

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

2.5

I'm obsessed with Frankenstein now and I thought this would be like a retelling, but it wasn't really. It didn't really focus much on the actual Frankenstein part, which is completely fine, but I just thought/hoped it would. It's a good book, but I just had different expectations.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Police brutality and Gore

Minor: Sexual content

woweewhoa's review

dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: War, Misogyny, Ableism, Body horror, Animal death, Police brutality, Violence, and Fatphobia

Minor: Sexual content and Sexual harassment

verinvaldez's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious medium-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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War and Violence

Moderate: Torture, Blood, and Vomit

Minor: Sexual content

saint_eleanor's review

emotional funny informative lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense medium-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

3.75

I loved this book very terry pratchett esque. A little hard to follow at times but thats partially because i can’t keep track of more than like 3 characters in a book. The time skips were a little confusing, but ultimately this is like a lovable folktale urban legend with heavy philosophical undertones. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Death, Child death, and Gore

addyruth17's review

informative mysterious medium-paced

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

3.25

The application of the ideas surrounding Frankenstein were intriguing here: vengeance, guilt and innocence, humanity's collective anger and grief.  The rest of the book didn't really live up to the promise of this premise: I'd say there were too many plot lines and I wasn't very invested in any of them.  The clunky translation also brought the reading experience down.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, and Alcohol

Minor: War, Cursing, Grief, and Sexual content

toffishay's review

dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is one of my favorite books of all time and I am so intrigued by how stories that we know can be reimagined and adapted to analyze different fears and different times with different actors. In the case of Frankenstein in Baghdad, the tale of a Frankenstein monster is not used to expose fears of science and paternalism, but of exploring violence and the impacts of war, religion and spirituality, and identity and purpose. All that I didn't like was that I would have liked more exploration of the female characters who have interesting stories, but not as much time on the page and some characters get a lot of time, but little payoff. I think that if you are interested in horror and a reimagined classic, this is certainly worth your time.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Alcoholism, Blood, Alcohol, Body horror, Murder, Police brutality, Violence, War, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Mental illness, Sexual content, Torture, Vomit, Gaslighting, Gore, Medical content, and Stalking

Minor: Excrement and Religious bigotry

mme_carton's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Mass/school shootings, Misogyny, Police brutality, Sexism, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Medical content, Gun violence, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Violence, War, Sexual assault, Religious bigotry, and Torture

Moderate: Cursing and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Animal cruelty

ryster's review against another edition

4.25

I adored this book! It's well-told, with different, but very interesting perspectives. I didn't care much for the last 20 pages, in which I thought hte book became kind of lost in itself, I see what it was going for, but I just didn't click with that part. Overall though, it was a very enjoyable read, I would definitely recommend it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Death

Moderate: Sexual content

Minor: Death of parent

igafk's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War

Moderate: Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Physical abuse, Mass/school shootings, Murder, Police brutality, Sexual content, and Death

spinesinaline's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

This book follows the original classic with a murderous creature formed out of multiple corpses. However in Saadawi’s story, these corpses are victims of suicide bombings, the story set in Iran following the USA’s invasion, and the creature sets out to seek justice for these parts of it’s self. 

While the author doesn’t directly comment on foreign conflicts and warring governments, we see the horrific impacts of this violence on each character in the book and the larger implications and realizations are subtly pushed forward throughout the story for the reader to come to on their own.

Because of this more subtle undertone, it does feel that the descriptions of death and destruction are at times callous or impartial but I think the author’s intentions and style work beautifully in getting his point across.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Suicide, War, Death, Murder, Gun violence, Violence, Gore, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Sexual content