Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson

36 reviews

becky_hofer's review

dark emotional tense medium-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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Lesbophobia, Torture, Sexism, Racism, War, Misogyny, Death of parent, Homophobia, Colonisation, Murder, and Violence

hailstorm3812's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I liked it but not as much as I thought I would. It's a very interesting story and I want to see where it goes but it is also a ceaseless bummer. I almost wish they hadn't told us about

the conversation with the council and just saw Baru's actions because I had trouble buying into the relationships knowing what she will do. I did love Tain Hu though, even know what was likely to come. I was sad but I knew it would happen. Maybe that's a good thing since Baru is so vividly painted that I felt like I knew her so well.

I need to know what happens next but I know I will feel bad. Wish me luck!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, War, Colonisation, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Police brutality, Religious bigotry, Genocide, Murder, Death of parent, Sexual harassment, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, and Sexism

Minor: Toxic friendship, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

abbyschalupa's review

challenging dark slow-paced

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

2.5

I struggled with this book far more than I thought. There were such great reviews, and it’s grouped with books and genres that I love. I was really hoping to have found a new favorite. I’m so disappointed that this was quite the opposite. It dragged on for an exceptionally long time. This book did not need to be as long as it is. The action truly only began happening by the last 1/4 of the book. 

The first set of chapters hooked me. Baru’s childhood is raw, detailed in rich prose and the wounds are eminent there on the page. Immediately, I was rooting for her. So what happened? 
Unfortunately, the writing. Everything from there on fell. While the beginning brought the lens to focus on Baru, showing her experiences and all she endured, it felt like the writing style switched. Maybe that was the intention. 

However, the writing no longer gave a lens into Baru’s world. It wrote from an outsider’s view, in black and white tone, as though a script were documenting all that occurred. There became an extreme lack of detail, we are no longer shown Baru’s world but instead told about it. The color went away and all became black and white. The rest of the book read like text for socioeconomic studies, detailing who said what, and what that meant, and what Baru must now do. All told, never shown. 

Everything here is detached. I no longer cared for any of the characters, or Baru herself. She skyrocketed through the ranks, in ways that felt incredibly unrealistic, becoming arrogant, ruthless, and coldhearted. Although repeatedly called a savant, she ended up putting herself into multiple bad situations that were entirely avoidable. There were several situations I saw solutions to, but this savant never saw coming, and gave stern replies to people she supposedly cared about, only to never see them again before they died. It became incredibly frustrating. 

I debated quitting halfway. Instead I skipped through chunks of chapters, glad to not have tried reading through them. It felt more like dragging through socioeconomic dense text compared to reading. Far more detached telling then showing. I ended the book disappointed that with such a great start, I never could get hooked back into the story or the character again. Unfortunately, the writing took such a detached and reporter like stance that I found no possibility of drawing further into the story, caring about the characters, or getting further invested. A huge bummer for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Emotional abuse, Colonisation, Murder, Sexual content, Death, Homophobia, Gaslighting, Misogyny, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Abandonment, Death of parent, Grief, Genocide, and Medical content

Moderate: Gore, Violence, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Ableism

aileron's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Genocide, Fire/Fire injury, Violence, War, Colonisation, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, and Murder

Moderate: Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, Torture, Grief, Medical content, Animal death, Blood, Sexual violence, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Racism

Minor: Confinement, Alcoholism, Pedophilia, and Suicidal thoughts

kingcrookback's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-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

This is a compliment: The last twenty percent of this book made me want to scream. The way Dickinson seeded the reveal, just enough to barely rouse suspicion at first, and the way it all started adding up, terrible but unstoppable. I sometimes felt like I was watching someone start building a cage, only to suddenly understand that they're building it around themselves. God, it was almost unbearable, so effectively constructed.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, War, and Violence

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Lesbophobia, Alcohol, Death of parent, and Homophobia

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Animal death, Murder, Outing, and Sexual content

strawberrybex's review

4.0

Ooh there’s a lot that’s really great abt this book. I had slightly mixed feelings abt some of the pacing, but by in large a solid read. 
please do look through the trigger warnings though! they are very real. and like add on pretty extensive discussions of eugenics (as like a mechanism of the big evil empire but. thorough and frequent)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Death, Homophobia, Violence, Lesbophobia, and Murder

Moderate: Racism, Sexism, Sexual violence, War, and Death of parent

imperialism, colonialism, colonial violence, genocide and cultural genocide, race science and eugenics. also threats of sexual violence include like. threats of FGM. also conversion therapy

third_bookworm's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense slow-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

5.0

This book makes me unwell. It's so, so well done and also so upsetting. Really excellent in many ways. This was my second time reading it, and like all my favorite books it truly hits differently the second time through.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Colonisation, War, Violence, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Death of parent, Grief, and Torture

emeraldrina's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

A masterpiece of world building and intrigue. Each time I picked up this book I was so immersed that I forgot I was reading. The world is both complex and believable, the characters all beautifully complicated, and the plot just the right amount of knotted mystery to keep you guessing and on the edge of your seat without being confusing. At times the strategic planning was a touch over-explained, but that might just be because I have a background in the subject. And it wasn’t redundant enough to put me off or make me feel bored. Other than that, the writing was stunningly beautiful, and yet never so present that it was distracting from the story.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Lesbophobia, Homophobia, War, and Murder

Minor: Cursing, Blood, Misogyny, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Outing, Vomit, Death, and Pandemic/Epidemic

indeedithappens's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Abandonment, Body horror, Sexual content, Addiction, Animal death, Cursing, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Kidnapping, Racism, Sexism, Ableism, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Biphobia, Blood, Body shaming, Chronic illness, Colonisation, Bullying, Child abuse, Violence, Classism, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Misogyny, Pandemic/Epidemic, Sexual harassment, Death of parent, Terminal illness, Excrement, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Vomit, War, Xenophobia, Infidelity, Murder, Physical abuse, Lesbophobia, Police brutality, Suicidal thoughts, Self harm, Slavery, Torture, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

bisexualwentworth's review against another edition

• 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

I loved the political intrigue. I loved the parts of this book that leaned more into being a character study of Baru. I liked Tain Hu and thought that she was handled very well. I just sometimes felt like there was too much emotional and narrative distance between us and Baru, and I’m also not sure how much I care about reading the sequels anytime soon.

That being said, anti-imperialist speculative fiction is my shit, especially when it’s queer, so I absolutely gobbled most of this up. 

Extremely strange encountering the word “sodomite” in a high fantasy novel, though. I will be pondering that choice for a while I think.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Homophobia, Misogyny, Death of parent, War, and Colonisation

Moderate: Racism and Murder

Additional content warnings for murder and drowning. Also, the homophobia is VERY intense here.