Reviews tagging 'Rape'

The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara

13 reviews

crichar9's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative 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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Violence, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Drug abuse, Transphobia, Hate crime, and Addiction

Moderate: Chronic illness

Minor: Suicide, Dysphoria, and Dementia

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

misssleepless's review

emotional sad slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Terminal illness, and Transphobia

Moderate: Child abuse, Grief, Homophobia, Rape, and Sexual content

Minor: Excrement, Hate crime, Incest, Suicide, and Vomit