Reviews tagging 'Kidnapping'

Axiom's End by Lindsay Ellis

23 reviews

purplatypus's review against another edition

adventurous emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail and Violence

Moderate: Medical content, Xenophobia, Confinement, Kidnapping, Blood, Suicide, Death, Genocide, and Car accident

Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic, Excrement, Addiction, and Slavery

dejahentendu's review against another edition

emotional reflective slow-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

First contact! Conspiracies, government agents, conspiracy theories, warring alien factions - this book has them all in spades. And yet, the story almost seems languid for much of it. This was not a drawback for me. I liked the slow burn for much of the novel, with the reveals coming slowly. The main focus was on how completely disparate life forms and societies would interact. Where would we understand each other,  and where would we be horrified. Quite nicely done. 

The narrator was mostly quite good, but overdid it a few times. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Xenophobia, Kidnapping, Blood, and Genocide

Minor: Car accident and Vomit

hanz's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious 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

2.0

The beginning of this book is so slow and the pacing is a little all over the place. I think it shouldn't have least 100 pages shorter. Haven't read many first contact stories, but I found that I didn't really care about the characters or what was happening. 

The books also had some weird info dumping parts where a character would repeat something that happened in the previous couple of chapters in very stilted dialogue. This didn't happen that often, but it was enough that I noticed it. 

Otherwise it's very readable and picks up in the second half, but not enough for me to continue with the series. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Kidnapping, Blood, and Medical content

froginhat's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense 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? No

2.5

Started strong

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Blood, and Gore

elizabethblue's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

(I listened to this book while in bed with covid 19, so my recollection may not be totally accurate.) Damn, I love some actually alien looking aliens! This book was super interesting. 

The growing friendship between between Cora and Ampersand was fascinating to read, and the road trip portion of the first act was very funny. I enjoyed the slow reveal of what was going on with the mysterious group of government kept aliens. As well as the general culture of their species as it was revealed. 

Honestly did not expect the surprise partner bonding between Cora and Ampersand. I probably should have seen it coming, knowing the author from her YouTube content, but it was a very welcome surprise!

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Content Warnings

Minor: Body horror and Kidnapping

softanimal's review against another edition

emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Vomit, Grief, Car accident, Medical content, Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail, and Genocide

caseythereader's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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

Graphic: Murder, Violence, Kidnapping, Medical content, Cursing, Death, Vomit, Blood, Car accident, Confinement, Gore, Gun violence, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Colonisation

madmadmaddymad's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny fast-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? Yes

5.0

I couldn’t put it down! 

It’s remarkable how enthralling the plot and pace of this novel was. I’m satisfied with it as a stand alone, but am absolutely invested if Ellis decides to ever write a follow up, 

Cora was such a fun protagonist. She really embodied the adventure of first contact, and her view point as a fish-out-of-water, or maybe fish-adjacent-to-water, coming from a background of government distrust and frustration over conspiracy theories with her famous, estranged, Alex Jones-esque father. What an an excellent background detail and incredible character and worldbuilding. 

I also enjoyed the humor of this novel, and I thought the trope of humans being scary to the alien species was handled extremely well. Ampersand is hilarious and lovable and I was lo-key rooting for there to be an inter-galactic romance from the first moment

he snuck her into the Google campus and he was just so bad at communicating with humans that he gave Cora (and me!) second-hand embarrassment.

Powerful alien. Adorable doofus. 

Loved this book! 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Kidnapping, Genocide, and Suicide

brnineworms's review against another edition

adventurous tense fast-paced

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

4.0

This is YA. That’s not a positive or negative judgement, just an observation. It wasn’t marketed as YA fiction as far as I recall but that is absolutely how it reads – a college-age protagonist who needs to learn a lesson or two about responsibility, an intermittently-relevant family, awkward romance, drama, angst, queer rep, etc. I enjoyed it but I can see I’m not the target audience.

Also,

I feel like a lot more could have been done with the fact that Ampersand’s knowledge of Earth culture was hundreds of years out of date. He could have spoken Middle English, for example. The point was that he thought humans were violent and backwards, owing to the fervent religious fundamentalism and purges he witnessed in the wake of the Black Death. But then that seems kind of unnecessary, because we’d already seen him horrified by humans eating meat – there was no need to invoke medieval atrocities when there are already aspects of modern life which he finds abhorrent.

This may seem nitpicky but it’s superfluous details like this that end up making the book at least a hundred pages longer than it needed to be. Thankfully, the quick pace prevented the story from feeling like a slog.

I’d recommend Axiom’s End to fans of Stephenie Meyer’s The Host. It has a similar vibe.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, Suicide, Confinement, Self harm, Stalking, and Violence

Moderate: Racism, Death, Antisemitism, Cursing, Drug use, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, and Sexual content

Minor: Torture, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Ableism, Car accident, Colonisation, Grief, Gun violence, Islamophobia, Slavery, Vomit, Murder, War, Abandonment, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Excrement, and Fire/Fire injury

mind control, not having control over one's own body

cfell's review against another edition

adventurous challenging reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Blood, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Panic attacks/disorders, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Gore, Suicide, Genocide, and Gun violence

Minor: Sexism and Torture