Reviews tagging 'Cancer'

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

5 reviews

maeverose's review against another edition

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes

2.75

TL;DR: I was very bored. I liked the secondary pov more than Sidra’s. I don’t like how gender is handled. I’m realizing I’m not a huge fan of Becky Chamber’s writing style…

I love her other books, but so far this series is not working for me and I’m considering dnfing it. I was so bored. I didn’t really care for Sidra’s storyline at all, even though I typically love sentient AI stories. Jane’s pov was far more interesting, but I really didn’t like her narrative voice. Her constant categorizing of things into ‘good’ ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’, saying something is ‘real ___’ over and over, her angsty teen phase… It made complete sense for her character but it was overdone and got very annoying for me to read.

As well, it really bothers me how gender is handled in this series. Becky Chambers handles it much better in the Monk and Robot series (though it’s still not perfect). I think it was probably unintentional, but in this book and in small angry planet, she always strictly ties gender to biological sex. There’s an alien species that has four sexes, so they use different pronouns for each of those sexes, but none of the characters identify as trans, and when it comes to most species it’s treated as a given that they just identify as a man or woman based on their biological sex. They always rely on someone’s physical characteristics to judge what pronouns to use.

I wish I liked this series but I just don’t

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Child death, Death, Animal death, and Child abuse

Moderate: Vomit, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, and Blood

Minor: Excrement, Ableism, Eating disorder, Cancer, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, and Gore

Graphic: dog death and eating of dogs (it’s mentioned very often) Moderate: explosion (that killed people) Minor: not an actual eating disorder but someone has to skip meals to survive and ends up extremely thin and malnourished.

dancers_and_dragons's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring 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

5.0

Becky Chambers explores what it means to be a person in every which way throughout this poignant companion to The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet. While initially I was disappointed in not getting to see what the main cast of the first novel were up to, I quickly was swept up in the new family being found in this novel. 

This book was heartfelt and emotional in the best of ways, from the interactions between characters to the descriptions of memories, to the heart-wrenching low moments of the two main characters when they hit their lowest points. Without giving anything away, it's the story of two who are more alike than they know trying to make it through their respective journeys and managing the hiccups that come up along the way. I deeply appreciated the world building, much as I did with Chambers' first book, and I can't wait to read the next one when I have a chance. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Mental illness, Abandonment, Panic attacks/disorders, and Slavery

Moderate: Drug use, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, and Classism

Minor: Cannibalism, Medical content, Xenophobia, War, Cancer, Terminal illness, and Eating disorder

novella42's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad 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? It's complicated

5.0

I have yet to find a sci-fi author who handles themes of disability, chronic illness, neurodivergence, and mental health with the same deeply grounded compassion of Becky Chambers. This book is one of the harder reads in this series, but I love it to pieces, I love the characters, I love where it takes you, love the way it makes me feel by the end. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, Slavery, Eating disorder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Chronic illness, Infertility, and Mental illness

Minor: Cancer

Spoiler-level clarification on the eating disorder tag.

The character doesn't have an eating disorder but there's no tag for starvation or extreme malnutrition, and I think that could have a big impact for someone with an eating disorder.

Also, if you have trauma around dogs, this might be a hard read.

ireadqueerbooks's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful slow-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Sexism, Physical abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail, Forced institutionalization, Child abuse, and Cancer

strange's review

emotional hopeful inspiring 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

The wayfarer's series is almost certainly my favorite series of all time (I'm currently in the midst of a slow reread to work my way to the fourth book), and while I love the first book wholeheartedly and find the third to be wonderful and inspiring, this one connects to me on a personal level more than most books I've ever read. While I don't know if the neurodivergent coding of the main AI character, Sidra, is intentional, as an autistic person I found myself relating to her quite possibly more than any other character I've seen in media. There's so much more I can say but... I don't have the words nor the space to say it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Child abuse, Child death, Medical content, Physical abuse, Violence, Slavery, Alcohol, and Animal death

Moderate: Chronic illness, Colonisation, Forced institutionalization, and Drug use

Minor: Cancer

There are a lot of triggers in here, but this is not by any means a dark book. It covers some pretty heavy topics, but it manages to keep a relatively warm and comforting tone throughout.