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Lapvona

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Lapvona

By: Ottessa Moshfegh
Narrated by: Ottessa Moshfegh
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

In the land of Lapvona, the lord of the land Villiam is cheating the local villagers of their food, their water, their livelihoods. Grotesque and ridiculous, he marries the pregnant and tongueless ex-nun Agata, whom he believes will make him God, and his son will be the second Christ.

It's a land of murder, cannibalism, incest and rape. Despite all of the characters' individual inadequacies and madness, you find yourself completely engrossed in each character's fate, be it Marek, Jude, Agata, Villiam, Lispeth, Ina, Father Barnabas. It's an anti-fairytale within a fairytale—maybe this is what hell on earth looks like? Is it an indictment of humanity, of religion, of grotesque despots?

An original work of brilliance—singular, funny, horrifying and entertaining in equal measure.

©2022 Ottessa Moshfegh (P)2022 Penguin Audio Dark Fantasy Dark Humour Fantasy Fiction Literature & Fiction Magic Scary Comedy

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All stars
Most relevant
I don't think the categories really do this justice; all fiction is a kind of fantasy and this is like a dark fairy tale. A story one makes up of a small world with simple elements, just here populated with sometimes dark detail, especially when contrasted with the normal. It is not horror or superficial or obvious, but illuminates as light through the crack in a little opened door, what is in our dark minds.

Captivating

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The first half of this book had me hooked but then it just fell apart for me. It even felt as though the dialogue style completely changed. Maybe that was intentional. Narration was great though.

Mixed feelings

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A weirdly captivating, intriguingly grotesque historical fiction narrative of capitalism and religion, loved it, want to read more

Awesomely grotesque and unsettling

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It dives into perversions of humans, the reality of the social classes and religions along side magical events. The narrator is just what the story needs, she did write it after all!

The right kind of twisted!

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Firstly let me say it's not as disgusting as most of these reviews make out, there is quite a lot of incest and abuse, a bit of cannibalism, and some witchcraft, so if that's not your bag move on...

But IF you can get over that or are like me dead on the inside and not easily shocked then elements of the book are actually quite funny in a farcically tragic ''Voltaire'' kind of way.

I think a lot of people gave up halfway, and to be fair most of the abuse is in the first half of the book, but IMO that's just the build-up to the tragic comedy, or maybe I'm just a sick puppy.

Horrible (but entertaining) beginning, a Farcicle middle, abrupt ending. 4 stars.

It's a Farce not a Horror...

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