Reviews tagging 'Forced institutionalization'

Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler

9 reviews

lycheejelly's review against another edition

emotional mysterious reflective fast-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: Chronic illness, Mental illness, Death of parent, Gun violence, Addiction, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, Suicidal thoughts, War, Body horror, Confinement, Torture, Death, Self harm, Suicide attempt, Grief, Toxic friendship, Suicide, and Terminal illness

Minor: Cancer, Car accident, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Infertility, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, Abandonment, Ableism, Incest, Abortion, Addiction, Bullying, Classism, Alcoholism, Cannibalism, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Xenophobia, Eating disorder, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual content, Pregnancy, and Racism

sarahnh's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

Amnesty was my favorite story in the collection, but all of them are fantastic and thought provoking. I loved reading the afterwords where Butler discussed her stories and what inspired them. How I felt about each story changed a lot with the added context, and made it more interesting.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Incest, Pregnancy, Body horror, Chronic illness, Death of parent, and Grief

Moderate: Cancer, Rape, Self harm, and Suicide

sup3r_xn0va_maya's review

adventurous challenging dark hopeful mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.5

I really love Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler. It's a book of short stories and a few essays by Butler and it's just so damn good. 

My favorite stories in the book are The Evening and The Morning and The Night, Speech Sounds, Amnesty, and The Book of Martha. Although the other stories aren't my favorite, I still think they were very good. 

Overall I give this book a 4.5 out of 5 stars.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Terminal illness, Incest, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Forced institutionalization, Pregnancy, Violence, Child abuse, Death, Death of parent, Kidnapping, Miscarriage, Mental illness, Murder, Rape, and Sexual violence

noahsingh's review against another edition

medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Police brutality, Medical trauma, Genocide, Colonisation, Confinement, War, Violence, Suicide, Racism, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Child abuse, Blood, Grief, Torture, Gun violence, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Rape, Sexual assault, Pedophilia, Forced institutionalization, Death, Death of parent, Body horror, Incest, Sexual content, and Suicidal thoughts

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

mrsdarcylynn's review against another edition

challenging hopeful inspiring reflective fast-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

More than 10 years after being handed this book in a college level English class, I have finally read beyond the titular short story!

There is something compelling about Octavia Butler’s writing. Something that pulls you into her world and leaves you wanting more. 

I’m so glad I finally finished this collection of short stories. I will think about and come back to many of them for quite some time. And, if anything else, I hope I walk away from this reading experience and persist. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Gore, Incest, Suicide attempt, Gun violence, Confinement, and Animal death

Moderate: Death and Forced institutionalization

Minor: Rape, Sexual content, Miscarriage, and Sexual violence

Many of the short stories have multiple trigger warnings, all have at least one. Read with self care in mind ♥️ These stories are heavy, but thoughtful too.

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

beccaand's review against another edition

dark reflective fast-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, and Gun violence

Moderate: Cancer, Slavery, and Forced institutionalization

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