Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

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

10 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

quantumponies's review against another edition

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism

Moderate: Animal death and Rape

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

bookishmillennial's review

adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious reflective fast-paced

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

disclaimer: I don’t really give starred reviews. I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Find me here: https://linktr.ee/bookishmillennial

I absolutely adored this collection of short science and speculative fiction stories! Some stood out to me or impacted me more than others, but that's just how short story collections go. NK Jemisin is such an excellent writer, and I will continue to read anything by her, even her grocery shopping lists!

My favorites were:

• The Ones Who Stay and Fight
• The Effluent Engine
• Cloud Dragon Skies
• The Trojan Girl
• The Storyteller's Replacement
• The Brides of Heaven
• The Elevator Dancer
• On the Banks of Riber Lex
• The You Train

I listened to the audiobook and I *highly* recommend that format. All of the narrators (Shayna Small, Gail Nelson-Holgate, Robin Eller, Ron Butler, Kevin Stillwell, Je Nie Fleming, Jeannette Illidge) were fantastic!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Body horror, Gun violence, Animal death, Rape, and Murder

Moderate: Police brutality, Slavery, and Racial slurs

Minor: Sexual content

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

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.

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

mariebrunelm's review against another edition

challenging dark inspiring mysterious reflective tense fast-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

4.5

 Short story collections are hard to review. What I can say is that each one in this collection was strong, and N.K. Jemisin adapted her style to each one, which was quite impressive. I was so mesmerized by the second story, "The City Born Great", that the next ones paled a little in comparison, but this collection has absolute gems in store. It spans most of the subgenres of speculative fiction, from fantasy to science-fiction to the fantastic with a touch of steampunk. I was especially delighted to read a couple of stories based on food, and was always baffled by the writer's craft. After reading The Fifth Season I knew I could trust Jemisin's longer fiction, but short stories imply quite a different approach and not every novel-writer is a good short-story-writer. Well, Jemisin's collection is a masterclass in itself.

Rep: most MCs are Black, many are queer.

CW: racism, hate crime, bullying, sexual violence, animal death... Not all apply to the same stories, and it can be difficult to keep track of them over such different narratives, so my list is far from exhaustive. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Bullying, Animal death, and Racism

monstrouscosmos's review

4.5

I really like NK Jemisin as a rule, and these short stories are largely no exception. a lot of heavy themes were tackled with a focus on individual and community survival and connection. I admit to struggling through a lot of the stories, and skipping a couple that ended up having triggering themes/events. I extremely enjoyed the stories connecting peoplehood to places, that's a theme in Jemisin's work I love to return to! I don't know if I'll reread this one, but I'm glad to have read it the one time at least for sure. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Kidnapping, Death, Sexism, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Violence, Racism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Car accident, Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, and Miscarriage

Minor: Child abuse, Pedophilia, and Child death