Reviews tagging 'Death'

How Long 'til Black Future Month? by N.K. Jemisin

15 reviews

dreamerfreak's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Confinement, Classism, Infertility, Child death, Cursing, Homophobia, Mental illness, Rape, Animal cruelty, Injury/Injury detail, Lesbophobia, Murder, Sexual assault, Racial slurs, Animal death, Blood, Bullying, Death, Gun violence, Pregnancy, Xenophobia, Miscarriage, Sexism, War, Misogyny, Racism, and Violence

bmpicc's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

"Read outside of your comfort zone." I say this at the library ALL the time. I decided to take my own advice. This is my guys favorite author, but even he admitted her books would be too much for my sci-fi/fantasy challenged brain. Then I realized Jemisin had a book of short stories. Could I do it?

Turns out I could! I read this with a friend as a buddy read and it was the BEST experience. We broke down each story. The writing, what it seemed the author might be trying to say, how it relates to us and our lives, was the amount of fantasy just enough or too much and why... We talked about everything. She might very well be the reason I finished too. There were 3 stories in here, that if they had placed earlier, I might have DNF'd. 

This may be more of a 3.5, but the buddy read experience upped it to a 4. Do not let my fears of sci-fi/fantasy take away from the fact that Jemisin has a way with words that I deeply respect. I was very impressed. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism and Death

Moderate: Police brutality and Violence

jayisreading's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful medium-paced

4.5

This surprisingly large collection of short stories really showcased Jemisin’s talent in storytelling and her control in crafting stories from different genres and timelines. Many of these stories aren’t particularly long, yet she managed to breathe so much life into them that made me want to read more about some of these worlds. (I’m also aware that a few of these stories were prototypes—of sorts—for actual novels, which I need to check out!) I was really taken to the pervasive Afrofuturist elements in many of these stories, the way they dreamed for something more.

Like most short story collections, I found some to be more compelling than others, but all-in-all, I know any fan of science fiction/fantasy will be able to find at least two stories that will stick with them.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Racism, and Body horror

Moderate: Violence and Animal cruelty

Minor: Misogyny, Classism, Slavery, Rape, Racial slurs, and Homophobia

talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

adventurous reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Death, Racism, and Murder

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Sexism, Police brutality, Misogyny, Classism, Infertility, Sexual content, Gun violence, Violence, and Bullying

Minor: Suicide, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Miscarriage, Homophobia, Child death, Slavery, Death of parent, Alcohol, and Drug use

melodyseestrees's review

adventurous 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? It's complicated

5.0

This is a powerful selection of works. Many I wish were longer but most are long enough to keep a reader satisfied. I recommend the audiobook edition but I will be seeking out a print edition to reread slowly and treasure every detail given life upon the page. There are dark topics within the works but they are not done in a graphic or offensive way. Their purpose isn't to jump scare or get a shock reaction. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Body horror, Animal death, Violence, and Racism

Moderate: Rape

Minor: Police brutality, Slavery, and Racial slurs

mythian's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Death

Moderate: Racism, Rape, and Sexism

rnbhargava's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

This is a wonderful collection of short stories by NK Jemisin. The content is thus varied and so are the triggers. There’s a good amount of Fantasy, Science Fiction, Magical Realism, even supernatural horror in this collection. It’s not perfect. Some of the stories are arguably too short, basically the germ of an introduction or an idea. Some others are perhaps slightly plodding, though I enjoyed quite a few of the stories regardless of length.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Genocide, Mental illness, Xenophobia, Ableism, Addiction, Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Car accident, Child death, Classism, Colonisation, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Dysphoria, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Racism, Sexual harassment, Stalking, Terminal illness, Toxic friendship, Murder, Sexism, Sexual content, Slavery, Torture, Toxic relationship, Trafficking, and Violence

There’s a lot of content warnings across all these stories, I honestly probably missed some. That said, I loved the majority of Jemisin’s shorts in this book and I look forward to reading even more books from her.

queergoth_reads's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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

4.75

This is my first book by N.K. Jemisin and it was honestly so good. I love the mix of sci-fi and fantasy in this collection and how much variation there was in the types of stories. Definitely going to be one of my favourites from

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Death, and Violence

Minor: Slavery, Racial slurs, Police brutality, and Rape

steveatwaywords's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective fast-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? Yes

4.0

I so admire Jemisin as an author, not just for her fresh internally complex characters, but for how her entire worlds are built to shape her questions and themes. This could not be more true than in her Broken Earth trilogy, but she is not always equally successful title to title. That's why this anthology of her short works is so striking.

Jemisin herself says that the short story is a space for her to test out ideas and approaches. Read it for its marvelous stories, of course, but read it too as a terrific example of a writer testing herself in her craft. Each story is unique in its world-building and its character challenges, but many also vary significantly in style--and, like her worlds, the styles are structured not just as gimmick but as essential to the ideas she explores. 

Again, not every story hits equally well, but there are definitely stories in here to meet anyone's taste for fantasy or speculative fiction. Some are warm-ups or spin-offs of her other novel worlds, but some are concepts which could only be written as short story, brief challenges or ideas to provoke.  So far, this is one of my favorite works of hers, because it reveals a writer working, willing to experiment, to take risks.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Grief, and Death

mar's review against another edition

medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism and Death

Moderate: Body horror, Child death, Violence, Sexism, Sexual content, and Animal death

Minor: Rape, Police brutality, Pregnancy, Homophobia, Infertility, Miscarriage, Bullying, and Racial slurs