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nyoom's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
0.25
Graphic: Abortion, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Emotional abuse, Gore, Medical trauma, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Trafficking, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Grief, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Violence, Ableism, Alcoholism, Child death, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Medical content, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Pregnancy, Racism, Sexism, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Vomit
Moderate: Abandonment, Car accident, Cursing, Fire/Fire injury, Infertility, Racial slurs, and Terminal illness
Minor: Sexual content
thesincoucher's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Evelyn is a mad, evil scientist and when you realise this, you can completely see why she and Nathan, her ex-husband, got along because he is a psychopath. Evelyn has discovered how to create clones and she thinks of them as tools, not people, and uses them as such: their function, most of the time, is to be for donating organs, body doubles for politicians and so on. They have limited and short time stamps.
The plot starts when the clone her ex-husband created, Martine, decides to meet her and Evelyn quickly realises M is pregnant, which shouldn't be possible. Things take a turn on the worse, when M calls her she has just killer their husband. In her defence, he tried to kill her first.
This book is so quietly hilarious sometimes. There is quite a bit of black humour, which I loved, and quite a lot of splashes of horror, which I adored. Gailey writes with a lot of care about abusive relationships and the side-effects they leave on people. Evelyn and Marine become closer as the book goes on out of necessity which allows the author to explore those effects in more depth as well as maternal feelings. I cannot remember a book that exemplifies so well how it feels not to want children: Evelyn is a cold, ruthless character but there were a lot of moments when she pondered about her lack of maternal instincts that I thought they were spot-on.
I absolutely loved the concepts and ideas it throws on the reader and the ending was absolutely fantastic which makes it a shame that I think it needed more editing at the beginning where it is a bit repetitive and navel-gazey.
Graphic: Body horror, Murder, and Pregnancy
Moderate: Child death, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, and Domestic abuse