Reviews tagging 'Bullying'

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

48 reviews

luis_vieira's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Bullying, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: War, Violence, Confinement, and Murder

Minor: Child death and Suicide

ktdakotareads's review against another edition

adventurous 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Death, Violence, Sexism, Torture, Bullying, War, Misogyny, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Medical trauma, Toxic relationship, Blood, Body shaming, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Grief, Gun violence, and Injury/Injury detail

psydneigh's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

I read this in high school and loved it, and read it again now and still love it. Parts of this are incredibly poignant and this book stands the test of time. Highly recommend to anyone.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Grief, War, Animal cruelty, Bullying, and Xenophobia

robin_reads's review against another edition

adventurous fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

This was not for me for so many reasons. Mainly because of the amount of violence, how the book jumps right in and the reader has to catch up and the fact that children are taken away and trained to be soldiers. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Child abuse, Gaslighting, Murder, and War

Moderate: Bullying, Genocide, and Death

tomel's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

1.5

The best thing I can say about Ender's Game is that it is bad in fascinating ways. There are so many intersections of awful in this book that I will probably never stop thinking about it. But it is an extremely bad book about how

a group of naked racist/misogynist children (plus one tomboy) are trained by the Eugenically Perfect War Messiah to commit a genocide but it's okay because they're going to adopt the new generation of the people they killed and raise them as their own.

Imagine if Paul Atreides was really into laser tag and felt the White Man's Burden and gave himself the occasional n-word pass. I strongly suspect that the book must have been significantly changed since the 1991 edition I read, because there's stuff in here that should be at least as notorious as the scene in the sewer in IT and nobody talks about them. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Murder, Xenophobia, War, Bullying, Physical abuse, Genocide, Racial slurs, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, Animal death, Cursing, Animal cruelty, Sexism, Religious bigotry, Cultural appropriation, Antisemitism, and Death

For some reason nobody talks about how the children in this book are constantly naked.

erinwolf1997's review against another edition

challenging 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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, War, and Genocide

Moderate: Child death, Bullying, and Child abuse

veronica4242's review against another edition

adventurous emotional inspiring 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Bullying, Confinement, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Toxic relationship

Minor: Animal death and Animal cruelty

sedgewren's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

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

3.75

I enjoyed the detailed description of the games, the tactics and strategies used, and how Ender used the strengths of his commanders. This might be because it appealed to the chess player in me! I also enjoyed (and found interesting) the underhanded way the adults manipulated Ender, and despite Ender knowing most of it, how he had to go along with it. 

I would have liked to hear more about how Ender's brother ruled Earth after the war though, that would've been interesting. I'm also confused as to how the Buggers got into the game system to observe Ender's dream-like sequences enough to know how Ender would react to the places in real life. Maybe these points are covered in the next books, but apparently they're not as good, so I won't be reading them.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Physical abuse, Violence, Bullying, and Child death

shinsreading's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

have reread this book countless of times now, it’s just so good. every time i’m sad or feeling lonely, i find myself gravitating towards Ender’s Game to ground myself

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, Forced institutionalization, Mental illness, Emotional abuse, and Murder

Moderate: Bullying

betweentheshelves's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I guess I get why so many people love this book because it is easy to read and moves rather quickly. At times, it does get a bit repetitive, and the ending felt a bit rushed to me. But it is the first in a series, so the pacing and the info dumping does make sense.

Read this for a banned book club, and it will be an interesting discussion because of Orson Scott Card's problematic behavior. I'm not sure how much this is still banned because of content, it's something I will have to look up. I am looking forward to our discussion, though!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, and Violence

Moderate: Child death, Death, and Genocide

Minor: Sexism