Reviews tagging 'Adult/minor relationship'

The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara

5 reviews

waytoomanybooks's review

I was assigned this book in my Contemporary Queer Literature class, and I and several of my classmates told our professor that we couldn't and wouldn't finish reading it. The book steps out of "gritty realism" and veers into "tragedy, trauma, and grief porn" a la A Little Life. Every character in the novel is graphically raped multiple times. Every underage character at one point or another enters into a "relationship" with an adult. Every character at one point or another becomes a prostitute. There is even a character that had a mummified corpse in their closet. This is not an exaggeration. I'm not putting this behind spoiler tags because I think everyone should know about this before reading it. I wish I had known! Upon realizing that we weren't going to finish the book, our professor said that if we found the first third to be horrific, then we certainly shouldn't finish the book because it "gets worse."

Grief, loss, trauma, death, rape, etc. are unfortunate parts of life, but the author seems to take almost ghoulish delight in hurting characters who are based on real people. Don't read this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Addiction, Alcoholism, Blood, Chronic illness, Classism, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Drug use, Dysphoria, Eating disorder, Gaslighting, Gore, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Lesbophobia, Misogyny, Murder, Outing, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Transphobia, Abandonment, Ableism, Alcohol, Child abuse, Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Excrement, Grief, Homophobia, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Pandemic/Epidemic, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Vomit

krissymcgeehan's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny sad fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicide, Vomit, Death, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Addiction, Dysphoria, Physical abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Drug use, Transphobia, Rape, Emotional abuse, Grief, Murder, Violence, Medical content, and Sexual harassment

emilybr's review

dark emotional funny sad 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? No

4.5

This book is devastating. I finished it weeping, such a beautiful story with a tragic ending, made even more sad by how realistic it is. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Dysphoria, Homophobia, Rape, Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Terminal illness, Transphobia, Suicide, Addiction, Domestic abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Drug use, Hate crime, Grief, Sexual content, and Sexual violence

ocean's review

challenging dark emotional funny informative inspiring sad tense slow-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

5.0

This book is stunning, expertly written, and heartbreaking. It brings the characters to life so vividly that it's hard not to love them and want the best for them. This story is raw in its humanity. The humanity of its characters is constantly reduced by the world, its systems, and its people who have failed them in every way, but they remain human even when going on feels like the hardest thing imaginable. Please read the content warnings for this book as it is a very heavy read.

CW: homophobia, transphobia, racism, classism, sexism, sexual assault (children and adults), graphic depictions of sex, drug abuse, drug use, addiction, death/dying/mortality/funerals, graphic depictions of HIV/AIDs related complications, suicide, murder, blood, strangulation, cheating, use of homophobic slurs, use of sexual slurs, gun violence, nudity, trauma, sexual violence, eating disorders, dysphoria, child abuse, child abandonment, homelessness (children and adults), violence, depiction of pornography, incest, kidnapping, mention of prisons and prison labor, predatory police, sexual predators, sexually explicit language

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Blood, Body shaming, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Deadnaming, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Dementia, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Fatphobia, Grief, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Incest, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Racism, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Stalking, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, and Vomit

weelittlemouse's review

challenging dark sad medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book is horrible. Not in a bad writing way, but in a this book deals with so much death and abuse that it's so hard to read. I would have never read this book if it was a required reading. And even then, I wanted to drop it. The beginning moved so slow and was so hard to read about all the struggles that the characters went through, but about 1/4 to 1/2 way through, it started to pick up a lot more. 
I've read a lot of reviews saying that this book was derivitive of Paris is Burning. I haven't seen that film so I can't actually say whether that's true or not. But I did talk to my sister who has seen Paris is Burning, she says that a lot of people, because LGBTQ media has been so oppressed that people often compare many works to Paris is Burning. Again, I can't speak to the subject. But I can say that as an English Lit major, that every book has 6 degrees of seperation of either other books or some other form of media or history. I've also read that people think that there wasn't enough mention of drag life. I don't think that this book was supposed to be about drag life during the 80s. I think that it was supposed to be about life as a gay/trans person in New York during the 80s. I would also argue that it had a lot to do with class and race as much as it did with gender and sexuality. 
If you are a person who are easily triggered, don't read this book. I don't think that there's enough time in the world to write all the trigger warnings that would be need for this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Terminal illness, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Grief, and Chronic illness

Moderate: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Transphobia

Minor: Pedophilia, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Incest, Alcoholism, Excrement, and Dementia