Reviews tagging 'Genocide'

Ich bin Harrow by Tamsyn Muir

70 reviews

hayleyvem's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Mental illness, Chronic illness, Gaslighting, Cannibalism, Gun violence, Murder, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Self harm, Sexual content, Toxic friendship, Violence, and Bullying

Moderate: Pregnancy, Chronic illness, Genocide, Infertility, Terminal illness, Alcohol, Cancer, and Suicide

Minor: Child death and Death of parent

provo's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I knew before reading this that the plot would not make sense until 2/3 trough, so I was prepared for the confusion.
The finale was something else and bumped my rating from 4 to 5 stars, incredibly satisfying to unwind all the what-the-fuck-is-going-on.
But: check trigger warnings before reading, like there’s a lot of really graphic stuff.
Also maybe not a book anyone should read during an active psychotic episode (this is not a joke).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Alcohol, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Violence, Chronic illness, Gaslighting, Genocide, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, Vomit, War, Death of parent, Body horror, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Mental illness, Murder, Abandonment, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Child death, Gun violence, and Suicide attempt

itsapaxycab's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

I feel really really bad not giving this a full score because this book has broken me down in ways i could not imagine. The writing is incredible, the voice is incredible, the plot is so insanely well done and i have to re read it as soon as i can get my hands on a physical copy to mark up and annotate the shit out of. My only gripe is that it was really confusing, and even near the end extremely hard to follow. Maybe it was just me, maybe it’s meant to be that way, but it felt a little bit off near the end. No spoilers tho. Anyways yes absolutely you should read this book, it’s INSANE 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Death, and Body horror

Moderate: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Genocide, Ableism, and Child death

Minor: Death of parent

possibilityleft's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Toxic friendship, Physical abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Abandonment, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Genocide, Gore, Stalking, War, Vomit, Animal death, Blood, Child death, Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, Dementia, Dysphoria, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Mental illness, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Grief, Gun violence, Miscarriage, Murder, Suicide, Torture, and Violence

guessgreenleaf's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Murder, and Blood

Moderate: Schizophrenia/Psychosis and Addiction

Minor: War, Sexual content, Death of parent, Grief, and Genocide

elizmoe's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

5.0

Tamsyn Muir, meet me in the pit. So I can give you a <i>hug</i>. And then sue you for emotional damages. 

i'm screaming, i'm crying, i'm throwing up even more than harrow in the first 5 chapters of this book. gideon and harrow have forever altered my brain chemistry. i understand that these books are perhaps not for everyone, but they are definitely for <i>me</i>; every reality-bending, viscerally disgusting, brow-furrowing-inducing moment of this stupid lesbian necromancer and her stupider lesbian cavalier were for me, and i am wretchedly grateful. 

too early to say for sure, but this book may have ruined me for other books? we'll see, but i have a bad feeling that anything else i will read that contains any of the following:

necromancy
swordplay
space
nonlinear storytelling
unreliable narrator(s)
enemy lesbians

will just leave me wondering why that book can't be her*. 

*the locked tomb series

also the payoff of this book is CRAZY. if you are like 20% through and not seeing the vision and considering DNF, i urge you to carry on even if the 500 pages feel daunting. you won't believe your eyes when shit starts coming together, because so many pieces do. even pieces that don't, i am confident will be explained in the next two books, as there were many many setups from book 1 that made for some incredible reveals in this book. 

i have so much more to say about this book but most of it is yelling. even the occasional ill-advised meme inserts couldn't mar this book for me! and that's pretty insane!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Gun violence, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Blood, Violence, Medical trauma, Genocide, Cursing, Child death, Body horror, Death, War, Torture, Gore, Vomit, Mental illness, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Stalking, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Alcohol, Toxic relationship, and Suicide

hedsek's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Really struggled through the first half, but the book does redeem itself. I enjoyed it a bit less than Gideon (probably because seeing the world through Harrow's eyes is a lot less fun), but I'm curious to see what the rest of the series brings. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Toxic friendship, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Genocide, Grief, Eating disorder, Gaslighting, Murder, Violence, Vomit, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, Colonisation, Pregnancy, Alcohol, and Cursing

psitstorrie's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Murder, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Gaslighting, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Body horror, Terminal illness, Mental illness, Self harm, Cursing, and Eating disorder

Minor: Colonisation, Pregnancy, Excrement, and Genocide

boglord's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense slow-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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Toxic friendship, Gore, War, Blood, Death, Body horror, Genocide, Grief, Gun violence, Murder, Violence, and Vomit

Moderate: Alcohol, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Colonisation, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Abandonment, Cursing, Death of parent, and Gaslighting

Minor: Pregnancy, Religious bigotry, Suicidal thoughts, and Ableism

erebus53's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny lighthearted mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Necromages are fighting to save the universe from world-eating monsters, and that's not the weird bit. This is a labyrinthine ride through visceral fight scenes (with ... lots of viscera, and bones and connective tissues.. elaborate in the details thereof), half remembered memories or dubious reliability, weird hallucinations that often make almost sense, tea and gingernuts, backstory overheard in snippets lacking context, ribald humour, assassins, and spooky weird ghosty stuff.

There are times where I wish I was capable of reading proper, honest to goodness, paperback books, but seeing as I'm bound to Audiobooks due to my infirmities, all I can say is OUCH.
Tamsyn Muir writes with a sensual love of words, that does not make the content of her prose accessible to most people. To say it plainly - she uses big words, and weird words. a lot. I am well at home in anatomical and psychological textbooks, and literary critique; one  of my friends suggested that in conversation with me it would be easiest to carry a notebook to write down all the odd words I use  to look up later...  and even _I_ needed to read this with a dictionary nearby. It seems quite clear that the author was mauled or possibly traumatically wounded by a feral thesaurus as a child.

I'm sorry, Moira Quirk. Your work on this audio narration was ok,  but you fail to catch the Kiwi parlance. It sounds SO weird to hear kiwi idioms in your accent (we don't pronounce a$$ like that) and your attempt at te reo Māori words was wince-inducing. Thankfully that was only one line.

I'm doubling down on my comparison from the first book. This is definitely like an anime. Great chunks of this book feel a bit like watching Neon Genesis: Evangelion. A good proportion of the narrative is in second person perspective, which definitely leans hard into the claustrophobic and unhinged aesthetic. You spend the first half of the book trying to figure out why things in this book don't tally with the happenings in the previous book. That was kind of cool and didn't leave me feeling anywhere near as confused as I thought I would. There were enough breadcrumbs to keep me from feeling too lost in the woods.

Upside of the audiobook was the similarity I was amused by in the fast travel; I was reminded of Douglas Adams's, Hitchhiker's Guide, specifically his description of hyperspace, and the Infinite Improbability drive. "The River" having weird brain melting effects on a backdrop of a woman's voice calling out time-stamps felt so much like HHGTG with Trillian  in the Heart of Gold.

Many twists and turns, the reappearance (in various forms) of characters who were bumped off in the last book, the list at the front of the book of the dramatis personae (alive and dead) being actually useful, and a sense that you still don't know quite wtf is going on.. all leads me to think that the third book could go either way in my estimation. I'll have to see what it's like. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Child death, Violence, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Vomit, Blood, Dementia, Dysphoria, Genocide, Grief, Pregnancy, Cursing, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Medical trauma, and Murder

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders and Toxic friendship

Minor: Miscarriage