Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler

8 reviews

growintogardens's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.25

I've been meaning to read her work and this book fit one of my reading challenges. A great collection of stories. Some were super disturbing at times, but all them were well written and made me think. The second to last one was probably my favorite. So strange, but powerful. She's definitely great at Sci fi and I'm excited to read more of her stuff. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Gore, Sexual assault, Rape, Sexual content, Medical trauma, War, Grief, Misogyny, Torture, Murder, Physical abuse, Racism, Incest, Toxic relationship, Sexual violence, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Slavery, Body horror, Confinement, and Medical content

Minor: Death of parent, Child death, Drug use, and Racial slurs

I'm probably forgetting stuff- there's a lot of triggers.

trips's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad fast-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

5.0

Its been quite a while since I've read Butler. And wow, I forgot how she had these crazy ideas come out of her head and turned them into compelling, beautifully written stories. Some of her stories made me shudder, and some made me reflect on what I had just written in a way no other book has done in a while.
I don't really want to spoil anything, so here is how I felt about each story in a few words: 

Blood Child: Oh wow, that is terrifying.
The Evening And The Morning And The Night: Creepy, yet made me feel empathy towards the characters.
Near of Kin: Eh? Huh?...Why?
Speech Sounds: Powerful in an unexpected way.
Cross over: Haunting.
Positive Obsession: I loved this!
Furor Scribendi: Beautiful and helpful!
Amnesty: What did I just read?? 
The Book of Martha: I wonder how it would work!

That is all I will say. I hope to read more Butler in the months to come, her words are always so powerful and gripping to me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Violence, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Gun violence

Moderate: Gore, Xenophobia, Child death, and Death

Minor: Alcohol

alspacedout's review against another edition

challenging dark 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? It's complicated

4.0

A mostly great mixed bag! Favorites: Bloodchild, Speech Sounds, and Amnesty (plus the author essays). 
Least Favorites: Crossover by a good margin, can't remember what happened in it for the life of me, even after rereading the afterword to try to spark my memory.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child death, Self harm, Xenophobia, War, Violence, Suicide attempt, Torture, Incest, Toxic relationship, and Rape

Every short story has its own number of content warnings as they are all pretty dark, but none are tittilating or explicit with the exception of BloodChild. light spoiler ---->

Description of non-sedated surgery involving parasites. Doesn't go on for pages and pages on end but its gross!

readingsofaslinky's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious 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

5.0

So very excellent! My first Octavia Butler, and I’m now a fan for life ♥️

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Confinement, Child death, Alcohol, Terminal illness, Murder, Gun violence, Gore, Suicide attempt, Rape, Pregnancy, Physical abuse, Blood, Suicide, Slavery, Sexual violence, Domestic abuse, Incest, and Torture

szuum's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

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

1.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Body horror, Blood, Confinement, Death, Xenophobia, Violence, Terminal illness, Animal death, Death of parent, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Suicide, Torture, Gun violence, Pregnancy, Medical trauma, and Gore

Moderate: Forced institutionalization, Rape, Child death, and Miscarriage

Minor: Cancer

erikawynn's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Death, and Body horror

Moderate: Incest, Child death, Death of parent, Rape, Torture, and Confinement

queer_bookwyrm's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective 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? No

5.0

 5 ⭐ CW: Body horror, parasitic aliens, descriptions of blood and gore, self harm, suicide, abusive mental institutions, abuse/neglect, incest, illness, murder, death of a parent, miscarriage mention, still birth mention, street harassment, rape

Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler is a collection of fiction and science fiction short stories and two essays. As some of you know, Butler is my favorite author, and I am working on collecting all her works.

Butler has such a unique and poignant way of writing aliens. I loved the aliens in Bloodchild for how disturbing they were while also being integrated with human society. Butler always situates humans as the one being taken over and being the lesser beings. This particular story reminded me of her Xenogenesis series.

Speech Sounds was a story about an illness that impairs people in different ways, including destroying the ability of language, spoken and written. It was about finding different ways of communicating. Similarly, Amnesty explore alternate ways of communicating with the plan-like aliens that have come to Earth.

I even enjoyed the two essays included, especially the second essay with tips on writing. This is definitely a collection I will be rereading at some point. I just love absorbing all of Butler's ideas and concepts. I will never stop shouting about Butler's work!

Have you seen that one of Butler's works is going to be a tv show?! You know I'm hyped for it! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Blood, Gore, Self harm, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Child abuse, Incest, Chronic illness, Murder, Death of parent, and Rape

Minor: Miscarriage and Child death

shebby's review against another edition

dark emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore

Moderate: Forced institutionalization

Minor: Child death