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lonelylooper's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
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? It's complicated
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Physical abuse, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Blood, Death, Grief, Self harm, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Kidnapping, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Colonisation, Medical content, and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Torture, Dysphoria, Classism, and Child death
abookwormspov's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
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? No
5.0
This is an absolutely stunning work.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Suicidal thoughts, War, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, Murder, Suicide, and Toxic relationship
kaywhiteley's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
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 definitely one of my new favorite books and S. Qiōuyì Lù is one of my new favorite authors. This is genuinely the most unique way of storytelling I have ever experienced and I am rather obsessed with how it is written. Each story was distinctive and both disturbed me and filled me with wonder.
I also think the author handles difficult topics perfectly for my taste. Ae does not shy away from anything, but also describes challenging ideas, like suicide, with nuance and creativity. The different messages are clear without being too overt or preachy.
Everything about this fantasy world felt familiar and yet so, so strange. I want more, yet I am also satisfied with the level of world-building and the paths, stories, and histories left unexplored and mysterious.
I also think the author handles difficult topics perfectly for my taste. Ae does not shy away from anything, but also describes challenging ideas, like suicide, with nuance and creativity. The different messages are clear without being too overt or preachy.
Everything about this fantasy world felt familiar and yet so, so strange. I want more, yet I am also satisfied with the level of world-building and the paths, stories, and histories left unexplored and mysterious.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Gore, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Colonisation, Self harm, and Grief
ellornaslibrary's review
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
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
3.0
This is definitely one of those books where I'm going to have to re-read it. I definitely enjoyed it, but I don't think I fully grasped it. I'll probably try to re-read it in a digital or physical format though. Maybe I'll follow it better then. For now, I'll say it's definitely a 3 star as the story is compelling and emotional, and the narrator did a wonderful job.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Violence, Suicide, Grief, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Suicide attempt
I'm sure there might be others I missed. . . I'll try to update them when I remember, but this book starts off with a warning about a completed suicide so please, please, please keep that in mind.mondays's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Murder, Gore, Grief, Self harm, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, and Violence
talonsontypewriters's review against another edition
emotional
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? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Death, Gore, and Grief
Moderate: Self harm, Toxic relationship, Sexual content, Abandonment, Animal death, Animal cruelty, and Confinement
Minor: Sexism, Dysphoria, and Fire/Fire injury
Self-injury for magical purposes. Foot binding. Suicide by drowning. Mutilation/cutting, including in a consensual sexual context.entomonkey's review against another edition
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide attempt, Self harm, Toxic relationship, Slavery, Blood, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Torture, Murder, Kidnapping, Gore, Death, Suicide, Injury/Injury detail, and Confinement
sarah984's review against another edition
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
So many of the concepts were cool in theory, but I found this short story collection overall insufferable. The plot structure is very similar to The Empress of Salt and Fortune, in terms of telling an overarching story of international political intrigue through intimate details of seemingly insignificant objects. Unfortunately the reason the characters have for doing this is not well realized or interesting (a character we barely get to know makes a cop character Feel Bad about aer role in a repressive police state - incidentally the one character the author mentions deliberately designing as a Black character in the afterword is just a vessel for reforming a cop lol - with a bunch of didactic stories about individuals who feel like characters in a fable rather than real people who could have ever existed). There is one story told through letters and official documents that I thought was good but all the other ones had at least one huge glaring issue that annoyed me (eg. the foot binding story does that 'everyone suffers this but me' thing I hate in historical narratives, and the absolutely unbelievable character decision that drives the plot in the mermaid story). This could have been so good, but to me it wasn't.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, Body horror, Death, Colonisation, Toxic relationship, Grief, Drug use, Confinement, Mental illness, and Suicide
maeverose's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
inspiring
fast-paced
3.75
This book is unlike anything I’ve read before, and has many elements that I love. Biocyberpunk describes this perfectly. I would say it’s a mix of fantasy and sci-fi. It’s formatted in a unique way, with one main story and four connected short stories throughout. Most of it is in traditional prose, with some parts written almost like poetry and one of the stories is epistolary. The writing is descriptive without being flowery.
I’d strongly suggest checking content warnings for this before reading. There is an authors note at the beginning that covers the big ones: an on page completed suicide, and self harm. But I’d also add gore, body horror, and injury descriptions as significant ones. (I go into more detail in the content warnings section)
what I liked:
what I liked:
-the idea of a gallery of mementos that each hold a memory is such a fun concept. I would love if S. Qiouyi Lu wrote a companion anthology of more stories from this world
-the world building was really creative, and I liked the way Ora was described (especially in the night market scene)
-the casual use of neopronouns, and all the non binary/trans characters.
-the exploration of oppressive and unfair systems
-I really liked the parts about identity (specifically these quotes: “-æ has gone by “Anima” for longer than æ ever used ær birth name. Does ær terminal name apply only to the Anima that exists after becoming a node, or does the name encompass even the world before that transition?”
“We will never know who someone else truly is. We are still bounded by the limits of the material world. We still cannot enter someone’s soul to navigate the interior sea of the mind. But we can take a moment, a story, that illuminates their spirit, if only one facet. Yet that is what makes life the brilliant gem that it is: the collection of all those facets into a prism. A lens.”)
-also I’m obsessed with this cover.
-the exploration of oppressive and unfair systems
-I really liked the parts about identity (specifically these quotes: “-æ has gone by “Anima” for longer than æ ever used ær birth name. Does ær terminal name apply only to the Anima that exists after becoming a node, or does the name encompass even the world before that transition?”
“We will never know who someone else truly is. We are still bounded by the limits of the material world. We still cannot enter someone’s soul to navigate the interior sea of the mind. But we can take a moment, a story, that illuminates their spirit, if only one facet. Yet that is what makes life the brilliant gem that it is: the collection of all those facets into a prism. A lens.”)
-also I’m obsessed with this cover.
some (very subjective) dislikes:
— some of this definitely went over my head. The world building is really cool but admittedly confusing for me at times.
— I don’t care about sports at all so I skimmed most of ‘This Form I Hold Now’, but I liked the rest of that story (and how it connected to the third story)
— I don’t care about sports at all so I skimmed most of ‘This Form I Hold Now’, but I liked the rest of that story (and how it connected to the third story)
— I didn’t care for the knife play stuff in the last story. It felt out of place imo. It also bothered me that Ellen just completely forgot about the mermaid in her bathroom… like did that really not cross her mind the whole way there?
— this barely counts as an actual dislike: Of course with a novella you can only fit so much, and I feel that this book achieved its goal in telling the story perfectly fine. But with novellas in general I’m always left wanting more. This world is so cool and vast that I want to see more of it, learn more of its history. I want to see where Anima’s story goes from here, I’d like to learn about Vessel’s life, how se collected all the mementos. As I mentioned, I’d like more stories. I would love if this became a series of companion novellas or something.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Self harm, Injury/Injury detail, and Suicide
Moderate: Body horror, Fire/Fire injury, Death, Blood, Gore, Sexual content, Medical content, and Animal death
Minor: Cursing, Excrement, and Murder
Needles, drowning. Self harm: a scene of someone cutting their palm, graphic depictions of foot binding, and a knife play scene. In the latter the person being cut has very explicit thoughts about the desire to be cut. Gore: there are two scenes with gore in them that I can think of. The first is in ‘A Death Made Manifold’, that one is relatively minor imo. The second is in ‘As Dark As Hunger’, which is bordering on graphic. It more so describes graphic injuries than actual guts (though there is brief mention of that too, both fish and… human-esque), but it’s still uncomfortable to read.krystalg's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
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
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood
Moderate: Abandonment, Suicide attempt, Confinement, Death, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, Toxic relationship, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide