Reviews tagging 'Fatphobia'

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

6 reviews

ashfantastic98's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, and Death

Moderate: Death of parent, War, and Kidnapping

Minor: Fatphobia and Homophobia

alleelei's review against another edition

adventurous dark

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Death

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail and Death of parent

Minor: Fatphobia

aiiilnv's review

1.0

it was just actually so bad I feel like the surroundings were barely spoken about and the characters are practically all men. Plus two male characters literally felt the exact same and when

THE WOODSMAN CAME BACK AT THE END????? PLEASE IT WAS SO DUMB WHY IS HE ALIVE AGAIN IT FELT SO STUPID, LET THE MAN DIE IT WOULD HAVE FELT MORE IMPORTANT

I mean I guess there were women in this book but (TW: sa)

one's dead and the other he (the lead) hates, another's basically dead and one is genuinely just a sexual assaulter?? like?? HES A CHILD WHY AM I READING ABOUT HIM BEING CHAINED TO A TABLE NO THANKYOU NEVER THANKYOU THAT SUCKED AND I DON'T CARE I DIDN'T LIKE IT PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS BOOK EVER I CAN NOT DETER YOU ENOUGH FROM THIS BOOK

JUST ACTUALLY PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS BOOK IT IS SO BAD LMAO.
PEOPLE SAW ME READING IT ON THE BUS AND I HAD TO TELL THEM THAT NO, NO, THEY DON'T WANT TO READ THIS BOOK. NO MATTER HOW PRETTY THAT COVER ART IS ITS A LIE DON'T DO IT. 
This has been very ranty and badly written but it's just actually so bad.
I think there were important things to be found within its pages but for all the badness of the rest of it I just actually would rather burn it.
I literally never hate books this much this just annoyed to no end.
Spare yourself a bad book. 
There are literally so many better books.

there's also anti-lgbtq talk which he realises is wrong to some extent but it still was not at all fun to read

do what you will ig

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Homophobia, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, and Violence

Moderate: Fatphobia

in terms of content warnings, there's a lot to look out for (I've blocked out this book in my head so I can't remember it all) while some of it is alluded to in other characters etc and it definitely depends on where you stand in terms of how comfortable you are reading it but literally just no. so bad. sorry to the author but am i? not really.

booksploration's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad fast-paced

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

1.5

The Book of Lost Things is a dark and twisted story about loss, grief, and growing up. Regardless of its playful cover and the age of the main character, it’s not a children’s book.

Here’s a short description (taken from another edition): "Taking refuge in fairy tales after the loss of his mother, twelve-year-old David finds himself violently propelled into an imaginary land in which the boundaries of fantasy and reality are disturbingly melded."

I find the premise of the book exciting, the cover is beautiful, the author’s love for books shines through the story, and he manages to convey the complex feelings of grief well. 

 

Despite all of this, I didn’t enjoy the book. "Disturbingly melded" summarises my overall impression (after reading the whole book) pretty accurately.

A few examples:

Blood and gore - I enjoy a good horror story and am not against scenes of graphic violence in general. However, I think the author sometimes overdid it a little in a way that didn't add to the story, especially since it’s about the adventures of a 12-year-old boy. 

Paedophilia and the way in which it is addressed - In other parts of the book, the author described scenes of violence VERY graphically, but on page 47, he used a horrible "euphemism" to talk about the heinous crimes of a child molester:

"Now, in another bedroom, he thought of Jonathan Tulvey and Anna, and wondered if a man from a clean little house, a man who lived with his mother and kept sweets in his pockets, had made them go down with him to the railway tracks. And there, in the darkness, he had played with them, in his way." I’m glad that Connolly didn't go into more detail here, but the choice of words ("played") seems VERY unfortunate.

Homophobia - I’m aware that David is "only" a child, but the same doesn’t hold true for the author who chose to write this:

"David was being dragged along on a quest for a man whom he had never met, a man for whom only Roland had feelings, and those feelings, if the Crooked Man was to be believed, were not natural. There were names for men like Roland where David came from. They were among the worst names that a man could be called. David had always been warned to keep away from such people, and now here he was keeping company with one of them in a strange land." (p. 237)

And there's so much to unpack here:

"A bedchamber contained a naked woman and a naked man, and the Crooked Man would bring children to them (not the special ones, the ones who gave him life, but the others, the ones he stole from villages or those who strayed from the path and became lost in the forest) and the man and the woman would whisper things to them in the darkness of their chamber, telling them things that children should not know, dark tales of what adults did together in the depths of the night while their sons and daughters were sleeping. In this way the children died inside. Forced into adulthood before they were ready, they had their innocence taken from them and their minds collapsed under the weight of poisonous thoughts. Some grew up to become evil men and women, and so the corruption was spread." (pp. 304-305)

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Cannibalism, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Misogyny, Murder, Stalking, and Violence

Moderate: War, Pedophilia, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Torture, Vomit, Child abuse, Confinement, Fatphobia, Kidnapping, Mental illness, and Cancer

Minor: Alcohol and Excrement

kestrel's review

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Violence, Terminal illness, Murder, Fatphobia, Child death, Child abuse, and Cancer

Moderate: Homophobia

Minor: Pedophilia and Rape

elizlizabeth's review against another edition

slow-paced

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

1.0

This was basically OUAT but without Lana Parilla's gorgeous prescence. Non-sensical, tone deaf, and historically innacurate af. 

Also what's with David having OCD and suddenly not when it's convenient for the plot?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Gore, and Mental illness

Moderate: Fatphobia and Homophobia

Minor: Pedophilia

The main character has OCD traits and it's mentioned in the beginning of the book for shock factor. Fatness and ugliness is equaled to evilness throughout. Allusions to queerness as something that's "not normal", but tolerated because gay character is one of the good guys. Can't find bestiality on the list, but it's explicitly alluded to and never stated as morally incorrect.