Reviews tagging 'Eating disorder'

The Discomfort of Evening by Lucas Rijneveld

49 reviews

astridrv's review against another edition

Reading this book felt like watching Hard to be a god. Can't recommend it but don't regret it. And the author sure is a poet. All of the content warnings..

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Sexual content, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Antisemitism, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Child death, Violence, Blood, Body horror, Gore, Incest, Eating disorder, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Emotional abuse, Suicide, Grief, Suicide attempt, Vomit, and Excrement

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, and Physical abuse

ellislilylovestoread's review

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Child death, Incest, Suicide attempt, Animal cruelty, Self harm, Animal death, Child abuse, Mental illness, Death, Excrement, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Sexual assault, and Rape

barelyalex's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

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

5.0

Haunting. I think about this book often, there were parts that cut through me. Unabashedly real and important. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Child death, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Suicide, Pedophilia, Child abuse, Torture, Violence, Vomit, Eating disorder, Incest, Sexual assault, Excrement, Suicidal thoughts, and Antisemitism

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Murder, Terminal illness, Adult/minor relationship, Religious bigotry, and Self harm

sidekicksam's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

4.0

Dit hele boek is ongemak. Rijneveld laat geen schunnig onderwerp onbesproken, van aanranding en verkrachting tot het penetreren van koeien, en het was op sommige stukken echt een heel ongemakkelijk boek om te lezen. 

Maar het was wel goed. 

We volgen Jas, wiens broer Matthies door een noodlottig ongeluk om het leven komt. Haar gezin is ontwricht door de uitval van haar oudste broer: vader praat er niet over, moeder stopt met eten, en haar broer Obbe en zusje Hanna krijgen de ruimte niet om hun verdriet een plekje te geven. 

Jas loodst ons door thema's als de dood, rouw, religie, leven in een boerengemeenschap, puberteit, seksualiteit en fantasie heen met de nieuwsgierige en open blik van een 12-jarige, waardoor het door tragedie doordrenkte verhaal niet aanvoelt als een steen in de maag. Het jeukt, het kriebelt en het fronsen staat je nader dan het lachen, maar dat maakt het boek alleen maar beter. Van wat ik in andere recensies las, ligt het wellicht ook aan de taal; het spreekt wel erg tot de verbeelding in de eigen taal, wat zorgt dat je eerder gruwelt van de inhoud dan wanneer je het in het Engels leest. 

Als stadskind kan ik me geen inbeelding maken van hoe het leven in een dorp moet zijn geweest, maar ik geloof dat sommige elementen van dit boek dat wel goed weergeven. Het boek is doordrenkt van tragedie, maar leest verrassend 'makkelijk' weg voor hoe ongelukkig de personages zijn. 

Ik lees eerst even zo'n 15-20 andere boeken voor ik weer een Lucas Rijneveld boek pak, maar een volgende komt er! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Child death, Death, Animal death, Self harm, Incest, Gore, Grief, Excrement, Eating disorder, Dysphoria, Blood, Animal cruelty, and Mental illness

paperknotbooks's review

dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense 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

4.75

I think this will throw off my reader friend who’ve all rated this book 1-3/5 ⭐️s from the disturbing content. Yes, there is a lot of “ick,”  perversion, and animal cruelty, but I was charmed by Rijneveld’s writing and submerged in the story.  I loved the narrative voice: obviously young and naive, but with literary aptitude for quiet details. Probably will bumpy this up to a 5-⭐️ if it truest borrows itself into my memory.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Excrement, Grief, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Eating disorder, Incest, Sexual assault, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Death, and Mental illness

Moderate: Sexual violence, Religious bigotry, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Cursing, Gore, Suicide attempt, Vomit, Torture, and Self harm

unfortunatecircus's review against another edition

dark emotional tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• 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: Animal cruelty and Animal death

Moderate: Incest and Child abuse

Minor: Pedophilia, Excrement, and Eating disorder

w0rldofab00kw0rm's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Eating disorder, Sexual content, and Suicide

msmagoo502's review

challenging dark funny hopeful sad slow-paced

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

3.75

This book was challenging and triggering. It was also written very well and it really takes you into the mind of being around the age of the character but some of the things were just incredibly difficult and terrible to go through and it's very sad the life they live full stop I'm having a struggle inside to decide what did I just read? Did I like what I just read? Was it in fact good? And My outcome is yes it's a good book technically. But it's dark.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship, Animal death, Sexual content, Grief, Sexual violence, Incest, Excrement, Child death, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Suicidal thoughts, and Toxic relationship

Incestual undertones

james1star's review

dark tense medium-paced

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

1.25

I hated this book so much and honesty wouldn’t recommend it at all. I wish I’d had DNFd it earlier but wanted to finish as it was read as part of my Bookish World Cup (videos on my YouTube channel if interested). 

Plot: not much to say here, it’s a character driven novel where little really happens. We’re following ten-year-old Jas via first person as she lives on a dairy farm in rural Netherlands with her family. Coming up to Christmas, Jas is worried her rabbit will be killed so wishes God take another… her oldest brother for example. This does occur after he drowns and what ensues is an exploration of grief on the family and her interactions with her younger sister Hanna and older brother Obbe. 

Rijneveld does do a decent job at showing how grief takes over the lives of Jas’s parents with the mum becoming reserved, stops eating and increasingly suicidal. The dad turns very cold with both neglecting their remaining children to fend for themselves. This dark portrayal and decent into mental deterioration is very apparent and depicted relatively well. The writing is decent enough as well but as the book develops any positives became far outweighed by the negatives.

My main issue with this book is there’s just far too much grossness involved which become boring over time and just horrible to read. Rehashing depictions of bodily functions and products (snot, faeces, urine, bile, vomit, etc) are not only disgusting but I don’t understand why there’s so much of it. Reading about animal abuse and death are things I hate at the best of time but when there’s no justice served… nope!! I despise this so much, it’s a thing that attaches to me strongly and I can’t shift the feeling of disgust and anger. What’s worse is there are no consequences for these actions and it’s a terrible portrayal of such situations. A lot of the book also doesn’t make entire sense to me, specifically the interactions between Obbe and his sisters. He is a repulsive character in my opinion and the way he thinks and acts are really unfathomable that adds to my dislike of the book. In a similar vein, all the siblings don’t act in a way appropriate, it’s like Rijneveld put in all these horrific things over and over to impact the reader… but it just disgusts me. The family are part of a community with the children going to school so they’re not totally isolated which makes their actions more questionable. There’s a lot of hypocrisy prevalent as well, a note I picked up on was the anger the family feels to those culling the cows later in the book where they’re literally dairy farmers who abuse, exploit and eventually murders cows in the process… didn’t sit right with me there. 

I might have more to say but don’t care to waste any more time on this book that I hated so yh. Read it if you want but I wouldn’t. Any messages and what Rijneveld wanted to achieve, for me they failed and I will not be reading their new book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death

Moderate: Child abuse, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Excrement, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Incest, Violence, Body horror, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Gore, Child death, Vomit, Mental illness, Eating disorder, and Antisemitism

emzilia's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

This is an incredibly dark and disturbing novel, but the graphic content is juxtaposed by the poetic and beautiful writing from the perspective of a traumatised, hurting, child. It captures the way we used to think as children and would make logic connections to the things around us. For Jas, however, her sense of the world is informed by tragedy and disfunction. 

This is a beautiful novel because it is written beautifully, but the story is anything but. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Grief, Incest, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Eating disorder, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship