Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

26 reviews

janang3l's review against another edition

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

5.0


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ambill's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful sad medium-paced
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0


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bits_and_pieces_odds_and_ends's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional fast-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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uhtceara's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0


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dcm7918's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective tense 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

4.5


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mar's review against another edition

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adventurous dark slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

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shieldbearer's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Ender's Game is a classic for a reason. While one or two moments are cringy by today's standards, Ender's Game is definitely one of those novels that everyone should read at least once. Exploring such themes as culpability, communication and manipulation, Ender's Game really reads like it was plucked from the minds of its characters.

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lovelymisanthrope's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I picked up this book as part of a buddy read with a friend. After a lot of thought and discussion, I think I really enjoyed this novel! This novel follows Ender, a "third" (in this future world, you are only allowed to have two children), and his journey to help defeat an alien race. He is recruited into this program from a very early age, 6, and the story progresses until he becomes a teenager. From the beginning, the reader can see he is being manipulated by the adults to become the military leader they need. 
Ender has two siblings: Peter, a very rough around the edges boy who is seemingly evil, and Valentine, an empathetic girl who is always watching out for Ender. One of my favorite aspects of this book is how Peter and Valentine's characters are used to highlight how Ender is a blend of both of them.
There were some very difficult to read scenes, especially with depictions of animal cruelty from Peter. It was also hard to read Ender's story in general because he was so young when he started with battle school, and you cannot help but feel like his childhood was stolen from him. 

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stylo_'s review against another edition

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

4.0

It's striking that for someone with repellent and destructive beliefs in the real world, Card was able to write a novel so deeply concerned with the question of empathy in darkness. Ender's Game I first read as a child, taken with the verisimilitude of its depiction of children's mentalities and concerns, even if the characters' speech patterns and invulnerability to emotion strains credibility. As Card's introduction in the revised edition points out, adults often criticize the work for its "unrealistic" depiction of childhood, whereas children have the exact opposite reaction, appreciating the work's refusal to dumb down their internal dialogues and concerns for the sake of appeasing adult egos and perceptions. Yes, children are in fact concerned about war; they do think about the meaning of life; they do wonder at the cruelty of their peers and humanity; they do wonder how to atone for their sins. They are whipsmart and know more than you think.

The prose is sparse and utilitarian, the plot straightforward and fast-moving, but all in service of the themes: why are human beings so vicious towards the other? Why is empathy so hard to exercise? What is the point of war, and what does it do to us? And what does redemption look like? Intense cruelty towards the characters only sharpens the point on which these examinations take place. (During one pivotal reveal towards the end of the novel, I pictured Ender's face as none other than Aleksei Kravchenko's in Come and See, the greatest and most tragic war movie ever made.)

The young-adult nature of the book does mean that themes, while mentioned, are not fully explored. Exploration of the themes rests in the realm of allusion; there's an impressionistic character, the way so much is communicated through Ender's dreams, through the fantasy game he plays on the computer, and the all-too-brief conclusion which I still find thrilling and evocative. I look forward to seeing if these themes are expounded on in Speaker for the Dead

As a 30-something, this remains a striking, sad, and unique work.

(Caveats: There is some casual sexism in the book, and Card fumbles the ball on racial sensitivity with some of his characterizations - see for example the slang language used by the kids.) 

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nrogers_1030's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0


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