Initially the dialogue in Cows seems forced, almost laughable. Many conversations come off as clunky, affected, and most of the characters appear pretentious or insane. Upon returning from his first day of work, stinking and covered in slaughter byproducts Steven Runs into his disturbed love interest in the hall of their council house. A piece of meat falls from his hair and she asks: Reading 'Cows' is like running some kind of marathon. Chances are, the most disturbing novel you've ever read is Disney-lite compared to this one. I'd suggest reading it over two or three days like I did. Despite its relatively minor length, reading it in one sitting might have you not leaving your shower for the rest of the day, and spreading it out over a week is kind of like staring at the sun. Do it for too long and you're bound to cause some permanent damage. Piggy (2022): The Stranger takes Sara to one after he hits a bull with his van and Sara loses consciousness. It's where Sara encounters two of the girls who bullied her earlier, Roci and Claudia, bound and gagged and begging her to release them, and later, comes across Alpha Bitch Maca's corpse.

I'm not normally one to preface a review, or even mention in a review, when a book is not appropriate for certain audiences. (I hope to have duped a few of the weak-stomached into reading, say, Peter Sotos or Pan Pantziarka, because they deserve being read). But I'm going to start this one by saying, quite bluntly, Cows is not for everyone. In fact, Cows may not be for anyone. It is scatological, offensive, disgusting, filled to the brim with sex, violence, and sexual violence, and is probably capable of inciting nausea in those who are perfectly capable of sitting through atrocity footage and watch driving school videos for fun. On Steven's first day we meet Gummy (yeah....we find out why Gummy doesn't have lips or teeth) and Cripps - damn Cripps.....Cripps who has this insatiable sexual fatherly taste towards Steven and gives us soooo many words of wisdom. We also almost meet a strange pair of eyes hidden behind the grate by Steven's work station. I have to stop here or I will end up writing a novel - buy this book - follow the life of Steven and Lucy along with the herd of cows living under the city.That part is disgusting, yes. But that's just the beginning. It gets so much worse from then on. And then, Steven learns how to communicate with cows, for some reason. I guess, because they want him to kill their tormentor, Cripps. Because Cripps rapes them before and after killing them, at the factory. Cowboy Bebop (2021): Our introduction to Vicious involves one of his minions being being marched through a storehouse with rows of giant tuna laid out on the floor. As the minion has messed up he nervously eyes the various hooks and other implements of the trade, but as it turns out Vicious uses a katana to off him. Forget Bret Easton Ellis, Poppy Z Brite, and Dennis Cooper. That's kids stuff. If you want something truly repellent, try this." Her comment is practically unprovoked and one could imagine this scene playing out awkwardly in an uncomfortable amateur art film or an endless Godard monologue. It wasn't until well into the novel that I decided that Stokoe meant for much of the dialogue to be read more as a philosophical lesson than as actual conversation between two people. He places his characters in such unbearable situations that the only way to cope, the only way to process what they are going through is to do it out loud and in the most complex was possible. Viewed in this context the dialogue begins to work and adds a lot to the general feeling of the novel even if it is jarring to go from an extremely violent scene to a staid discussion of the transformative powers of violence.

Christine (a bespectacled cow with a chic French look) : You know, I hate to say this, but he’s not entirely wrong. It’s pretty simplistic to see this guy’s novel either as a cry of protest against modern urban debovinisation or on the other hand as an Eating Animals Safran Foer- style polemic. In fact, it’s neither. First, the good news. The story that Stokoe lays out in Cows is a road map of the development of a hypothetical sociopath murderer. The twisted tale follows the protagonist (if you can really call him that) from his abusive mother, through a metamorphosis of sorts (brought on by more abuse), and beyond. Stokoe’s writing is very good in that it will make the reader privy to the delusions and pressures within the character’s mind while almost making sense of the insane thought processes. The Factory in Digital Devil Saga 2 is actually very clean. The disgusting part comes from how the meat is made from people. The basement is a prison full of people, still alive, including children, ready to be processed.Scene : A pleasant summer day in the English Peak District. A guy is walking through the breathtaking Derbyshire countryside. The pathway takes him through a field. In the field, a herd of cows. Roxanne : Yeah? And how would you know so much about an obscure avant-garde novelist as all that? Your bluster butters no parsnips with us, buddy boy. We have this! (Five cows simultaneously hold up the photocopied picture.) COWS is exceptionally well-written and flows beautifully from chapter to chapter. The characters, with the exception of Steven, are very unlikable. Cripps, who works with Steven at the meat plant is especially despicable. I think that was needed to move the story in the direction it went. For me, I wasn’t a big fan of the Cripps character. While he was important for Steven’s development and self discovery, I found his character to be too-over the top for the rest of the story.