Reviews tagging 'Panic attacks/disorders'

Any Man by Amber Tamblyn

6 reviews

peggy_racham's review against another edition

5.0

"Any man will do."

A very difficult but important read. 
All the TWs

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Drug use, Physical abuse, Addiction, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Misogyny, Alcoholism, Blood, Body horror, Deadnaming, Child abuse, Eating disorder, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Violence, Suicide attempt, and Transphobia

acg2285's review against another edition

dark

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Dysphoria, Animal death, Murder, Sexual violence, Ableism, Eating disorder, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Torture, Violence, Gore, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Body horror, Child abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Blood, Fatphobia, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Pedophilia, Animal cruelty, and Cursing

wickedgrumpy's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.5

Well, I was looking for a change of pace and I think I got it.  The topic itself is hard to read about, hard to talk about, etc.

The writing was quite well done, kind of a bit of mixed media with the journal entries, chat logs, transcripts, poetry, and radio show vibes.  The first three victims were well fleshed out and their trauma was ever present and horrifying.  The later ones felt more superficial though I'm not really sure why.  There were also quite a few questions that were raised in the plot that were never answered that made it feel a bit rushed.

I do think this is a good book that has a lot of value in representing sexual assault as a whole and especially in male victims.  However, with all that in mind, I don't feel like I was the intended audience because I don't generally like to read books about rape.  I suppose I didn't expect it to be quite so graphic about it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Suicide, Blood, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Rape, Self harm, Violence, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Suicide attempt, Medical content, Body horror, and Torture

Minor: Abandonment, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Murder, Bullying, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cancer, Cursing, Drug use, Alcoholism, Kidnapping, and Alcohol

theliteraryhooker's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

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

5.0

This book is phenomenal. The writing is flawless, and Tamblyn does an incredible job of ensuring each character has their own unique voice. The subject matter of this book is extremely dark and challenging, but Tamblyn handles it with tact and nothing ever feels like it's being disclosed for shock value. I appreciated the way she examines rape culture, society's fascination with glamourizing tragedy and trauma, and the commentary on victim blaming. The format with the newspaper articles, tweets, and interviews also added to the reading experience. Fantastic book, though one I wouldn't recommend without first suggesting to check content warnings. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Transphobia, Rape, Self harm, Panic attacks/disorders, Animal cruelty, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt

chloseencounter's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective 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? Yes

5.0

Any Man was a stunning and unique experience. I’d 100% recommend the audio book because it’s extremely immersive. 

I really enjoyed hearing all the different POVs of the antagonist’s victims, this was a very raw look into all the various outcomes that can come from surviving sexual assault, weather it’s dealing by humor, family, control, emptiness, self destructive behavior, or even suicide. While the characters were interesting and their storylines were heartbreaking, the most special thing to me about this novel is the look at what women so often deal with when faced with sexual violence but through the eyes of a man. Unfortunately female victims of sexual assault are all too common, we hear about it so much in fact, our society has become desensitized to the sexual abuse women face and how it’s handled by the public. Flipping the narrative and using men as the victims not only opens up an important conversation about men who have experienced sexual violence and how they are treated but also made the subject feel much more shocking. Then I suppose we can ask ourselves…why is that? Why is being sexually assaulted as a women so commonplace that it doesn’t feel nearly as gut wrenching to read?

The most eye opening part in my opinion was the very last bit, when our serial rapist responds to the journalist, in which she replies with a lot of grotesque language about how a women might think about men as essentially prey or even nonhuman. Then she sends the same exact paragraph replacing the pronouns with she/her, it was sort of appalling to see how different those paragraphs felt right next to one another. Why one was shocking and the other…felt sort of normal. As a women it was easy for me to read the paragraph and think “yea that’s just how men often think of us”, and yet the same exact paragraph but with men as the group being preyed upon felt much more abhorrent. 

At the end of the day, I think that ultimately there wasn’t one predator but multiple women predators. The story seemed to lump these people into one frightening amalgamation of a women because how could society believe that there may be multiple women out there preying upon men, it must be a repeat offender. However, when a women is attacked it could literally be “any man”, which is a very smart way to make a statement about how both male and female victims of sexual violence are seen unfairly by the general public.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Alcoholism, Animal death, Blood, Grief, Medical content, Medical trauma, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Torture, Death, Eating disorder, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Cancer, Child abuse, Transphobia, Rape, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide

autumnwhite's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Sexual content, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal death, Blood, Body shaming, Cursing, Cancer, Gore, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Death, Chronic illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Stalking, Grief, Hate crime, Mental illness, Sexism, Sexual assault, Eating disorder, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Lesbophobia, Medical content, Rape, Self harm, Transphobia, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Terminal illness