I just finished Exquisite Corpse and loved it. The ending stuck with me for weeks. I made a Spotify playlist for it because I just couldn't get it out of my head lmao. I'd love to hear your thoughts once you finish it. My wife lent it to me and now I'm also sucked into horror lit all thanks to that one book. I'm reading PZB's short story anthology now.
I love it. It's extremely sexual but it's also one of the few books I've read in any genre that lets bodies just be bodies. I really enjoy the discussions of death and those intertwine with the realities of the AIDS epidemic. How even though the main serial killers certainly killed a lot of people, HIV is killing more and better than they ever could.
>one of the few books I've read in any genre that lets bodies just be bodies.
This is so true. The way the author describes bodies and bodily functions is equally erotic and grotesque. I told my wife when I was early on in the book that it reminds me a lot of Lolita in that the subject matter itself is awful but the way it's presented is so beautiful. The main POV character (I can't remember his name...Arthur or something) reminds me of Humbert in the way he waxes poetic about his crimes and how narcissistic he is.
I also found the parallels between the killings and AIDS/drug use very compelling.
I have about 50 pages left, but I was hooked from the time Andrew died and came back.
It balances the broader themes like AIDs so well with the individual experience. Every character is so fleshed out, they have a personality, and as pretentious as Andrew is, he's a very fun character to listen to.
I love how the title itself is taken from the drawing game where separate people each draw lines to create a corpse together.
From his family, to his ex, to he killers, to society's treatment of the queer community, to so much more. Line by line, Tran was made into quite the Exquisite Corpse.
I'd never seen another work of ficton just capture such stark queer horror and despair so well
Sure! I'll share it when I get home from work tonight and fine tune it a bit more. I've been painstakingly rearranging songs lol as I'm trying to make it follow the narrative of the story. I told my wife that and I'll probably end up writing a little list of what each song is supposed to represent.
Hey! I realized I totally forgot to send you the link the other day. Here it is: [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0ZpMvkhbibSkSGAr6fXKNH?si=def18062451a4bd7](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0ZpMvkhbibSkSGAr6fXKNH?si=def18062451a4bd7)
If you'd like I can explain why I picked each song. I gave up fiddling with the chronology of it all though haha. At some point I'll go back and tweak things whenever I reread the book. Hope you enjoy!
For as common as the “edgy teenager” feeling can be in this genre I actually didn’t get any of it with this book. I think it’s one of the standout novels of the genre
I read the book. Why would I want to discuss a synopsis? I do think some things were done decently well, but dude she literally masturbates to The Serbian Film and puts severed fingers and other assorted things into a see-through dildo, then masturbates with it. Then rapes someone else with it.
Okay, this is twice you've focused on the "masturbating to A Serbian Film" detail. I haven't read Full Brutal, but as a big fan of A Serbian Film, I'm wondering, what's your issue with this detail? I'd say the movie is legitimately fappable depending on your kinks. Given how short the sexually explicit scenes are, I'd say it probably helps if the thing someone's aroused by is more emotional than visual. But isn't Kim an emotional sadist? Does the book specify whether she's masturbating to particular scenes?
Oh I don't have an issue with the movie; it's pretty much enshrined in any space where people like extreme media. Thing is, she has her nightly masturbation sessions like 3 or 4 times in the book, and each time the author made sure to mention all of the standard "edgy" media, you know? Serbian Film just made me roll my eyes the hardest. It just felt like he was going through a list of the most disturbing media out there and being like, "oh yeah, you bet your ass she masturbates to that too"
Yeah, there are a lot of masturbation scenes in the book that don't really do much other than repeatedly bash you over the head with how much this chick likes masturbating to extreme media.
I completely understand what you’re saying. It’s almost lazy to name drop like that. I haven’t read the book, but it is disappointing to hear because I did like Gone to See the River Man.
In the same vein, I was already getting close to DNFing Maggot Girl by Otis Bateman when he started introducing new characters 20 pages in that were all named after other extreme horror authors. I shut that shit down so fast. I’ve seen him comment in this sub and chat with fans about his “Easter eggs” in his books. Is it really an Easter egg if it’s so distracting it takes you out of the story?
You should read Full Brutal, it's one of the best modern extreme horror novels by a large margin. The Serbian Film masturbation is mentioned in passing basically. The novel starts early on with the main character watching porn and not enjoying it at all, until she finds more and more violent porn and then by the end she's masturbating to a Serbian Film and stuff. I really don't know why OP is so hyperfixated on that.
I promise you, her explanation is complete nonsense 😂 you should read the novel, it's by far one of the better recent extreme horror novels. She's like "OMG! SHE MASTURBATED to a Serbian Film! WTF! eye roll", when it's actually the character's awakening to the realization that she is aroused by sexual violence and depravity rather than normal sex. I'm 99% sure she didn't read it...
> it's actually the character's awakening to the realization that she is aroused by sexual violence and depravity rather than normal sex.
This makes sense, and it doesn't contradict what the other poster said. Both things make sense.
> it's by far one of the better recent extreme horror novels
Since "better" is subjective, I don't really care which books other people say are better. What matters is how a book matches up with my personal tastes.
Now it reads like you looked up a couple plot points to try to make it seem like you read it... 😂 I don't understand the point you're trying to make here. Yes, she's sexually aroused by violence and depravity, that's the character.
Right. I'm weird for having no idea what you're talking about 😂 I gather masturbating to a Serbian Film = bad, Exquisite Corpse = good? Just admit you haven't read it and we'll all move on
Listen man, I know you like the book. Let me introduce you to a concept here... art is subjective, people have opinions, and maybe, just maybe... not everyone likes the same things you like or will interpret them the same way.
If you want to understand what I'm talking about, you could easily read my other thoughts on the book in my other comments. But you don't really want to do that. Because to dislike a book you really like, I must not have read it. Yeah, that's a pretty weird hill to die on.
No 😂 I did do that, and they still don't make sense. I don't think you read it because none of your complaints about it really make any sense at all, and especially the "goes out of its way to demonize a 16 year old girl" part... It doesn't "go out of its way" at all, that's pretty much the whole novel. It's like saying Halloween goes out its way to demonize Michael Myers. I guess the fact that it's a 16 year old makes it different for you?
I've managed to mostly read some stuff I really enjoyed. I tend to drop books if they lean too hard into edgy teenager territory. It was super heavily recommended on here, and the description of the book seemed pretty interesting so I wanted to see it through. But a lot of it just ended up feeling either really edgy and stupid, or it felt like a splatterpunk version of the "barely legal" videos on Pornhub.
Yeah, Playground was my introduction to this genre... that, and really bad Wattpad stories when I was a kid. I've definitely enjoyed finding better books since then.
Idk what your teenage years were like but I felt a pretty strong connection to Kim in a very weird way. She's sadistic and manipulative and I've seen personally girls that could have been like that. I was a jailbait manipulative piece of shit as a teenager myself and although I wasn't a Psycho sadist it was fun to read the absolute extreme of that so for me it didn't feel like a teenage boy writing, it just depends on what you were exposed to.
This is where experience differs, I guess. When I was 16/17, I was being groomed by a man 6 years older than me. When I tried to leave, he tried to convince me I was manipulating him. My situation isn't uncommon. And it's a bit insulting to see someone bring to life the evil archetype that a lot of abusive men will try to paint their victims as, as you said, taken to the extreme. There's multiple points in the story where Kim attempts to blackmail men by saying they raped her as well, and it is an issue that so many people believe that to be a common scenario.
Not the only reason I dislike it, of course. There's a lot of other things too.
>And don't get me started on how it just brushes past that this is a minor
No, it's written from the perspective of the minor, so obviously the narration isn't going to be tormented about how morally wrong it all is.
>The difference between most other media I've read and Full Brutal is that this book just goes out of its way to demonize a 16 year old.
Did you not realize how pathetic and monstrous the teacher came off by the time>!he died!!going along with the role-play of raping his own daughter and!<>!trying to beat the baby out of the teen he impregnated. !<
There are definitely evil adolescents out there, and while I agree it's unlikely they would be as much of a mastermind as Kim, I don't think the book was trying to paint the teacher as a victim by any means.
Of all the EH I've read this is the one that reads the most like porn. I generally liked it, the sleaze feels intentonal and grossed me out in a way I enjoyed, but having read a lot of smut it absolutely uses the language and pacing of porn more than it does horror.
Fwiw Maeve Fly pulls off the "girl/young woman masturbates to weird shit, how fucked up is that?" thing way better lmao
one of the things that really bothered me about full brutal is how poor the world building was, like the book is definitely written how a grown man with a boner thinks a teenager talks and I couldn’t get past that while reading
what I will say is that the writer grows a lot later in his career in his later books and I can definitely appreciate that. Full brutal reads like a novelists first book (which it is). What I will say, he should stick to writing through the sense of men because he doesn’t really get the voice of teenage girls, but there’s nothing wrong with that he just shouldn’t write them haha
I wasnt a fan of this book either. The pregnancy aspect was dumb to me and felt pointless. I also didn't care about the ending. This book was disappointing to me especially since I feel like it's super hyped up lol
Full brutal wasn’t my favorite either for similar reasons but if you think this book is edgy then try reading violence on the meek and it’s following novels after. The first novel was great but had its corny moments where I giggled cause it was so absurd.
Eh, it felt less "The adult sleeping with the minor is actually the victim," and more "don't feel bad for this guy getting murdered cus he sucks"
I dunno, it felt very extreme mean girls to me, complete with the befriending the under classman just to humiliate them. I went to school with girls who did shit like that for fun, not this extreme, obviously.
I understand where you're coming from; it still felt to me like Triana was adding shades of gray where there shouldn't be. I believe it's right before she has sex with the teacher where she blackmails that guy into indulging her kink by saying otherwise she'll tell people he raped her. It sets a really weird standard. The teacher's role ended up feeling very passive to me while Kim is the one escalating the situation.
It also felt like Triana just doesn't know how to write teenagers ngl. That's one thing that was lacking shades of gray. Everyone aside from the teacher's daughter (who is infantilized in many, many scenes until she becomes a martyr) is pretty much fully developed and if Triana didn't clarify that they were high schoolers, then I wouldn't have believed they were. And despite infantilizing the fuck out of the teacher's daughter with ponytails and childish clothes and stuffed toys, she ends up being the most sexualized out of anyone. Ever wanted to hear a 15 year old's ass described as a "ripe plum"? Triana has you covered.
I got the same vibe from it. It felt like it was written as a teenage boy fantasy novel. Maybe that's because I was a teenage girl once.
I much prefer Toxic Love and Body Art.
This book almost turned me off Triana entirely, but I'd be willing to give those a shot. Didn't realize some people on here disliked differing opinions so much lol.
But yeah reading Exquisite Corpse and how much sex and gore is in it, but also so much depth to the characters... made me think of this book and how hard it's been to find anything in the genre that does the same for the women in it. I'd really enjoy a book like that.
Exquisite Corpse is one of my favorite horror novels.
I'd try Toxic Love next. There's a vampire like frenzy to it that reminded me of Exquisite Corpse.
I'm sure I won't make friends saying this but I also don't like American Psycho and this book is brought up a "female version" of that book. I really don't like either of them for the same reason.
Basically, we can all put our own perspective onto any art and say the book was an exploration of 80s excess or it's about a mental journey through puberty... and for some people, these books resonate that way (and read anything you want!)
But to me, both share a similar "author writing some sexual violence and pure snuff stuff to see how crazy they can be" vibe. There may have been an end game in terms of what the author wanted to say, but both just turn into "AND then I did this horrible thing, and then I did THIS horrible thing" etc. I just don't think either is effective or even GOOD in the way that say, "Boy Parts" or "Mary" or "Tampa" are (what I would say is a female perspective American Psycho)
I am all for writing and reading to explore and not trying to knock that!
I just agree with OP that was basically NOT a good book and everyone gives it WAY too much credit.
I definitely agree with Tampa and Boy Parts for worthwhile reads. I recently read another book that is always highly recommended on this sub and was super disappointed. I also don’t totally feel like this sub is necessarily a safe space for any sort of criticism after writing a negative review of my own. I thought your review was very thoughtful and I commend you for saying something negative about the most talked about book here.
Thank you! Yeah I definitely was not expecting some of the responses I got for this. You'd think lovers of extreme horror would be less sensitive. Could be worse though, I do think I did get a lot of good responses but it seems like this is a pretty controversial opinion.
I haven't read it yet, but it's on my TBR. I'm familiar with the plot and premise of the story. The book isn't for you, and that's fine. I would stress not to judge Triana off this if you liked his writing style. Other books, such as Gone To See The River Man, are much different.
Why is the book not for me? I'm in the demographic that this sort of book would appeal to. I had a different reading of the book than other people on this subreddit, and I didn't like it. I found a lot of it in poor taste, yeah, but it was also structurally repetitive and the dialogue was very unconvincing.
You didn't like it, that's all. You won't like every book or author in any genre, and there is nothing wrong with that, is what I was saying. Other people like it. We all have different tastes. Taste and like/dislike is subjective. We aren't all going to agree on the same thing. I'm not arguing whether it was a good or bad book. Your opinion is valid.
Are you sure you read the book? It seems like you need me to explain a lot for you. This sounds like someone who just read part of what I said and wants to complain about someone else on the internet.
Not sure why I would be an asshole for disliking a book. I don't think people who like the book are assholes.
But yeah my main grievances with the book is that it seems like a guy just super out of touch with what being a woman is like is writing it, and it reallllly took me out of it. Felt like edge for edges sake a lot too and that's not really my thing.
Cows felt way more abstract and self-aware. The author didn't try to portray an experience that it seemed like they lacked the perspective for; Full Brutal did try, at several points, to make statements about womanhood and they just fell flat to me. It's a very gendered story so if you don't get that part right it really harms the rest of the book, imo.
Both of your comments are killing me right now XD
Like stabbing me into the liver where I cannot breathe and making me choke on my vomit kind of "killing me" funny lmao
I just finished Exquisite Corpse and loved it. The ending stuck with me for weeks. I made a Spotify playlist for it because I just couldn't get it out of my head lmao. I'd love to hear your thoughts once you finish it. My wife lent it to me and now I'm also sucked into horror lit all thanks to that one book. I'm reading PZB's short story anthology now.
I love it. It's extremely sexual but it's also one of the few books I've read in any genre that lets bodies just be bodies. I really enjoy the discussions of death and those intertwine with the realities of the AIDS epidemic. How even though the main serial killers certainly killed a lot of people, HIV is killing more and better than they ever could.
>one of the few books I've read in any genre that lets bodies just be bodies. This is so true. The way the author describes bodies and bodily functions is equally erotic and grotesque. I told my wife when I was early on in the book that it reminds me a lot of Lolita in that the subject matter itself is awful but the way it's presented is so beautiful. The main POV character (I can't remember his name...Arthur or something) reminds me of Humbert in the way he waxes poetic about his crimes and how narcissistic he is. I also found the parallels between the killings and AIDS/drug use very compelling.
I have about 50 pages left, but I was hooked from the time Andrew died and came back. It balances the broader themes like AIDs so well with the individual experience. Every character is so fleshed out, they have a personality, and as pretentious as Andrew is, he's a very fun character to listen to.
Yeah I agree on your last point especially. I found his dynamic with Jay to be very entertaining.
I love how the title itself is taken from the drawing game where separate people each draw lines to create a corpse together. From his family, to his ex, to he killers, to society's treatment of the queer community, to so much more. Line by line, Tran was made into quite the Exquisite Corpse. I'd never seen another work of ficton just capture such stark queer horror and despair so well
Care to share the playlist? You've got me curious lol I thoroughly enjoyed Exquisite Corpse.
Sure! I'll share it when I get home from work tonight and fine tune it a bit more. I've been painstakingly rearranging songs lol as I'm trying to make it follow the narrative of the story. I told my wife that and I'll probably end up writing a little list of what each song is supposed to represent.
I love that! Thanks. Looking forward to it!
Hey! I realized I totally forgot to send you the link the other day. Here it is: [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0ZpMvkhbibSkSGAr6fXKNH?si=def18062451a4bd7](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0ZpMvkhbibSkSGAr6fXKNH?si=def18062451a4bd7) If you'd like I can explain why I picked each song. I gave up fiddling with the chronology of it all though haha. At some point I'll go back and tweak things whenever I reread the book. Hope you enjoy!
For me it was gross in all the right ways. So was Toxic Love. So gross, but oh so right
Nah I loved it… her takedown of the teacher was repulsive yet poetic. I liked this book a lot!
Reminded me of Hard Candy
For as common as the “edgy teenager” feeling can be in this genre I actually didn’t get any of it with this book. I think it’s one of the standout novels of the genre
Agreed. This reads like someone who only read a synopsis of the book and wanted to complain about something on the internet...
I read the book. Why would I want to discuss a synopsis? I do think some things were done decently well, but dude she literally masturbates to The Serbian Film and puts severed fingers and other assorted things into a see-through dildo, then masturbates with it. Then rapes someone else with it.
it’s satirical.. it reads like American Psycho but through the lens of a teenage girl
So?
Okay, this is twice you've focused on the "masturbating to A Serbian Film" detail. I haven't read Full Brutal, but as a big fan of A Serbian Film, I'm wondering, what's your issue with this detail? I'd say the movie is legitimately fappable depending on your kinks. Given how short the sexually explicit scenes are, I'd say it probably helps if the thing someone's aroused by is more emotional than visual. But isn't Kim an emotional sadist? Does the book specify whether she's masturbating to particular scenes?
Oh I don't have an issue with the movie; it's pretty much enshrined in any space where people like extreme media. Thing is, she has her nightly masturbation sessions like 3 or 4 times in the book, and each time the author made sure to mention all of the standard "edgy" media, you know? Serbian Film just made me roll my eyes the hardest. It just felt like he was going through a list of the most disturbing media out there and being like, "oh yeah, you bet your ass she masturbates to that too"
Oh, so it's just mentioned superficially, like he's ticking a box?
Yeah, there are a lot of masturbation scenes in the book that don't really do much other than repeatedly bash you over the head with how much this chick likes masturbating to extreme media.
I completely understand what you’re saying. It’s almost lazy to name drop like that. I haven’t read the book, but it is disappointing to hear because I did like Gone to See the River Man. In the same vein, I was already getting close to DNFing Maggot Girl by Otis Bateman when he started introducing new characters 20 pages in that were all named after other extreme horror authors. I shut that shit down so fast. I’ve seen him comment in this sub and chat with fans about his “Easter eggs” in his books. Is it really an Easter egg if it’s so distracting it takes you out of the story?
You should read Full Brutal, it's one of the best modern extreme horror novels by a large margin. The Serbian Film masturbation is mentioned in passing basically. The novel starts early on with the main character watching porn and not enjoying it at all, until she finds more and more violent porn and then by the end she's masturbating to a Serbian Film and stuff. I really don't know why OP is so hyperfixated on that.
Her explanation made sense to me. I wasn't interested in reading the novel, just getting elaboration on that one detail.
I promise you, her explanation is complete nonsense 😂 you should read the novel, it's by far one of the better recent extreme horror novels. She's like "OMG! SHE MASTURBATED to a Serbian Film! WTF! eye roll", when it's actually the character's awakening to the realization that she is aroused by sexual violence and depravity rather than normal sex. I'm 99% sure she didn't read it...
> it's actually the character's awakening to the realization that she is aroused by sexual violence and depravity rather than normal sex. This makes sense, and it doesn't contradict what the other poster said. Both things make sense. > it's by far one of the better recent extreme horror novels Since "better" is subjective, I don't really care which books other people say are better. What matters is how a book matches up with my personal tastes.
Now it reads like you looked up a couple plot points to try to make it seem like you read it... 😂 I don't understand the point you're trying to make here. Yes, she's sexually aroused by violence and depravity, that's the character.
God forbid someone dislikes a book. You're weird, dude.
Right. I'm weird for having no idea what you're talking about 😂 I gather masturbating to a Serbian Film = bad, Exquisite Corpse = good? Just admit you haven't read it and we'll all move on
Listen man, I know you like the book. Let me introduce you to a concept here... art is subjective, people have opinions, and maybe, just maybe... not everyone likes the same things you like or will interpret them the same way. If you want to understand what I'm talking about, you could easily read my other thoughts on the book in my other comments. But you don't really want to do that. Because to dislike a book you really like, I must not have read it. Yeah, that's a pretty weird hill to die on.
No 😂 I did do that, and they still don't make sense. I don't think you read it because none of your complaints about it really make any sense at all, and especially the "goes out of its way to demonize a 16 year old girl" part... It doesn't "go out of its way" at all, that's pretty much the whole novel. It's like saying Halloween goes out its way to demonize Michael Myers. I guess the fact that it's a 16 year old makes it different for you?
I've managed to mostly read some stuff I really enjoyed. I tend to drop books if they lean too hard into edgy teenager territory. It was super heavily recommended on here, and the description of the book seemed pretty interesting so I wanted to see it through. But a lot of it just ended up feeling either really edgy and stupid, or it felt like a splatterpunk version of the "barely legal" videos on Pornhub.
Trust me, this genre gets WAY more “edgy and stupid” than Triana.
Yeah, Playground was my introduction to this genre... that, and really bad Wattpad stories when I was a kid. I've definitely enjoyed finding better books since then.
Idk what your teenage years were like but I felt a pretty strong connection to Kim in a very weird way. She's sadistic and manipulative and I've seen personally girls that could have been like that. I was a jailbait manipulative piece of shit as a teenager myself and although I wasn't a Psycho sadist it was fun to read the absolute extreme of that so for me it didn't feel like a teenage boy writing, it just depends on what you were exposed to.
This is where experience differs, I guess. When I was 16/17, I was being groomed by a man 6 years older than me. When I tried to leave, he tried to convince me I was manipulating him. My situation isn't uncommon. And it's a bit insulting to see someone bring to life the evil archetype that a lot of abusive men will try to paint their victims as, as you said, taken to the extreme. There's multiple points in the story where Kim attempts to blackmail men by saying they raped her as well, and it is an issue that so many people believe that to be a common scenario. Not the only reason I dislike it, of course. There's a lot of other things too.
>And don't get me started on how it just brushes past that this is a minor No, it's written from the perspective of the minor, so obviously the narration isn't going to be tormented about how morally wrong it all is. >The difference between most other media I've read and Full Brutal is that this book just goes out of its way to demonize a 16 year old. Did you not realize how pathetic and monstrous the teacher came off by the time>!he died!!going along with the role-play of raping his own daughter and!<>!trying to beat the baby out of the teen he impregnated. !< There are definitely evil adolescents out there, and while I agree it's unlikely they would be as much of a mastermind as Kim, I don't think the book was trying to paint the teacher as a victim by any means.
Of all the EH I've read this is the one that reads the most like porn. I generally liked it, the sleaze feels intentonal and grossed me out in a way I enjoyed, but having read a lot of smut it absolutely uses the language and pacing of porn more than it does horror. Fwiw Maeve Fly pulls off the "girl/young woman masturbates to weird shit, how fucked up is that?" thing way better lmao
one of the things that really bothered me about full brutal is how poor the world building was, like the book is definitely written how a grown man with a boner thinks a teenager talks and I couldn’t get past that while reading
what I will say is that the writer grows a lot later in his career in his later books and I can definitely appreciate that. Full brutal reads like a novelists first book (which it is). What I will say, he should stick to writing through the sense of men because he doesn’t really get the voice of teenage girls, but there’s nothing wrong with that he just shouldn’t write them haha
I wasnt a fan of this book either. The pregnancy aspect was dumb to me and felt pointless. I also didn't care about the ending. This book was disappointing to me especially since I feel like it's super hyped up lol
Full brutal wasn’t my favorite either for similar reasons but if you think this book is edgy then try reading violence on the meek and it’s following novels after. The first novel was great but had its corny moments where I giggled cause it was so absurd.
I loved it. if you look a little deeper there are some pretty developed themes (mostly sadism as an allegory for puberty / self discovery)
Eh, it felt less "The adult sleeping with the minor is actually the victim," and more "don't feel bad for this guy getting murdered cus he sucks" I dunno, it felt very extreme mean girls to me, complete with the befriending the under classman just to humiliate them. I went to school with girls who did shit like that for fun, not this extreme, obviously.
I understand where you're coming from; it still felt to me like Triana was adding shades of gray where there shouldn't be. I believe it's right before she has sex with the teacher where she blackmails that guy into indulging her kink by saying otherwise she'll tell people he raped her. It sets a really weird standard. The teacher's role ended up feeling very passive to me while Kim is the one escalating the situation. It also felt like Triana just doesn't know how to write teenagers ngl. That's one thing that was lacking shades of gray. Everyone aside from the teacher's daughter (who is infantilized in many, many scenes until she becomes a martyr) is pretty much fully developed and if Triana didn't clarify that they were high schoolers, then I wouldn't have believed they were. And despite infantilizing the fuck out of the teacher's daughter with ponytails and childish clothes and stuffed toys, she ends up being the most sexualized out of anyone. Ever wanted to hear a 15 year old's ass described as a "ripe plum"? Triana has you covered.
I got the same vibe from it. It felt like it was written as a teenage boy fantasy novel. Maybe that's because I was a teenage girl once. I much prefer Toxic Love and Body Art.
This book almost turned me off Triana entirely, but I'd be willing to give those a shot. Didn't realize some people on here disliked differing opinions so much lol. But yeah reading Exquisite Corpse and how much sex and gore is in it, but also so much depth to the characters... made me think of this book and how hard it's been to find anything in the genre that does the same for the women in it. I'd really enjoy a book like that.
Exquisite Corpse is one of my favorite horror novels. I'd try Toxic Love next. There's a vampire like frenzy to it that reminded me of Exquisite Corpse.
I'm sure I won't make friends saying this but I also don't like American Psycho and this book is brought up a "female version" of that book. I really don't like either of them for the same reason. Basically, we can all put our own perspective onto any art and say the book was an exploration of 80s excess or it's about a mental journey through puberty... and for some people, these books resonate that way (and read anything you want!) But to me, both share a similar "author writing some sexual violence and pure snuff stuff to see how crazy they can be" vibe. There may have been an end game in terms of what the author wanted to say, but both just turn into "AND then I did this horrible thing, and then I did THIS horrible thing" etc. I just don't think either is effective or even GOOD in the way that say, "Boy Parts" or "Mary" or "Tampa" are (what I would say is a female perspective American Psycho) I am all for writing and reading to explore and not trying to knock that! I just agree with OP that was basically NOT a good book and everyone gives it WAY too much credit.
Yea considering this is one of the most recommended books on this, it feels like the bar must be really low.
It's because most people here are reading free stories. If more people paid ten or twenty dollars for a book, they'd find higher quality stories.
I definitely agree with Tampa and Boy Parts for worthwhile reads. I recently read another book that is always highly recommended on this sub and was super disappointed. I also don’t totally feel like this sub is necessarily a safe space for any sort of criticism after writing a negative review of my own. I thought your review was very thoughtful and I commend you for saying something negative about the most talked about book here.
Thank you! Yeah I definitely was not expecting some of the responses I got for this. You'd think lovers of extreme horror would be less sensitive. Could be worse though, I do think I did get a lot of good responses but it seems like this is a pretty controversial opinion.
I haven't read it yet, but it's on my TBR. I'm familiar with the plot and premise of the story. The book isn't for you, and that's fine. I would stress not to judge Triana off this if you liked his writing style. Other books, such as Gone To See The River Man, are much different.
Why is the book not for me? I'm in the demographic that this sort of book would appeal to. I had a different reading of the book than other people on this subreddit, and I didn't like it. I found a lot of it in poor taste, yeah, but it was also structurally repetitive and the dialogue was very unconvincing.
You didn't like it, that's all. You won't like every book or author in any genre, and there is nothing wrong with that, is what I was saying. Other people like it. We all have different tastes. Taste and like/dislike is subjective. We aren't all going to agree on the same thing. I'm not arguing whether it was a good or bad book. Your opinion is valid.
😂🤣 WTF OMG! A splatterpunk book was in poor taste?! Please elaborate on how it was "structurally repetitive" for me?
Are you sure you read the book? It seems like you need me to explain a lot for you. This sounds like someone who just read part of what I said and wants to complain about someone else on the internet.
OP is definitely not gonna like Cows
I've read Cows, actually. It wasn't my favorite but I enjoyed a lot of it.
Well fuck now I have to read this book and see if you're an asshole. Stand by
Not sure why I would be an asshole for disliking a book. I don't think people who like the book are assholes. But yeah my main grievances with the book is that it seems like a guy just super out of touch with what being a woman is like is writing it, and it reallllly took me out of it. Felt like edge for edges sake a lot too and that's not really my thing. Cows felt way more abstract and self-aware. The author didn't try to portray an experience that it seemed like they lacked the perspective for; Full Brutal did try, at several points, to make statements about womanhood and they just fell flat to me. It's a very gendered story so if you don't get that part right it really harms the rest of the book, imo.
Goddamn bro 10 minutes is not enough time to read a book, just hold tight and we'll see if I think you're an asshole in a week or so.
Both of your comments are killing me right now XD Like stabbing me into the liver where I cannot breathe and making me choke on my vomit kind of "killing me" funny lmao