Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - Perlebryggeriet

Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

Perlebryggeriet by Jenny Hval

59 reviews

archarlton's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

3.75

Content Warnings

ed_moore's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging mysterious slow-paced

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

2.0

Hval’s ‘Paradise Rot’ is a story of the sexual awakening of Jo, a Norwegian exchange student, after she finds a housemate in a converted brewery with little private space in it due to limited and paper thin walls.

It was quite an uncomfortable book. Hval’s use of description is extremely intimate and makes constant sexual innuendos, often making comparisons for the sake of description between things that really shouldn’t be and are quite uncomfortable, such as piss as warm milk for example. She really loved describing scenes of characters pissing for some reason…

There is connections made to Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ both in the title and frequent links to the Genesis story, though it wasn’t much of a retelling and instead just contained many food descriptions and a microcosm of rotting fruit throughout which was an interesting element at least. The space of the novel felt very liminal and uncomfortable, which is both down to its weird nature but also was contributed to by how awful the narration on the audiobook I read was. The narrator spoke so slowly with so little expression, it sounded a lot like an AI though I don’t believe this was the case.

I didn’t particularly find any of the characters that likeable, the male love interest/ antagonist Pym was a disgusting man who made every scene with his involvement a generally unpleasant experience. I don’t know what I expected from this book but it was just unsettling, and not in a god way, in addition to being full of questionable description.

Content Warnings

melodyseestrees's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious 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

3.75

Content Warnings

theelizabethjoy's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional mysterious 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

3.0

This was a difficult book for me to get through due to the body horror, descriptions of rot, multiple instances of someone pissing and the main character describing the sound and or smell and or feel of the urine.

Content Warnings

talin's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

emilycmarshman's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark medium-paced

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

1.25

gross!

Content Warnings

vavocado's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious tense fast-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

3.0

Content Warnings

prickly_plant's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark medium-paced

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

2.5

Content Warnings

gloom_lord's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious reflective fast-paced

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

3.75

"But the apple was first, and it never stops rotting, it just gets blacker."

I'm skeptical of those who read this novel and only found "vibes" and piss contained therein. Yeah, it has those things in spades, but I want to give Paradise Rot more credit than that. I think it's fascinating how Hval's writing is able to wrest sensuality out of the abject, and with it construct its own contemporary fairytale. This book might as well be a rotting apple, a glistening mushroom, a colony of mold. That's what it felt like to me. Sentences became spores. At times, they entered my body without cognition, eliciting soft reveries with the fleshy interior backdrop of an eyelid.

It's not a "perfect" book, but I devoured it in two short sittings and I have not stopped thinking about it.

Content Warnings

saint_eleanor's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark lighthearted mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

So bizarre and delicious
It almost reminded me of Mother! (The movie)

Content Warnings

More...