Reviews with content warning for Animal death - Camp Zero

I was interested in the plot at first, but it really lost me in the second half. The characters weren't very well developed and the writing wasn't good (especially the dialogue). Many plot points also centered around hating men and the reasoning behind this wasn't believable (except for the Foreman, who made sense to hate). And they mentioned the exploitation of Indigenous people many times, but did not include any representation from those groups, and kept the commentary very surface-level.

Also I didn't like how they kept saying "We only kill when necessary" or whenever when they literally could have robbed people instead of murdering a bunch of men. I feel like they could have acknowledged male priveledge and dealt with it in a way that wasn't just them murdering men nonchalantly.

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mandi_lea's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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tigger89's review

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
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

I finished this book nearly a month ago, and it's been stopping up my review queue ever since. I have very complicated feelings about it. Ultimately, I think I liked it, based on a personal reading that was very much between the lines and that I can't guarantee the author intended. You see, this book has many feminist themes, and it's not particularly subtle about them. They also lead, at least on a surface-level reading, to a fairly ugly, gender-essentialist conclusion about the nature of men versus women.

After much deliberation, I choose to interpret the book as undermining those apparent themes, for a number of reasons that are are too spoilery to discuss here. But I understand how many readers might, and have, come to a different conclusion. For that reason, I'd recommend this book to people who like their plot themes to be a little messy rather than straightforward, and caution those who are particularly sensitive to depictions of gender-essentialist feminism.

The things I liked the most about this book were getting to know the characters, the speculation on future technology with the Flick devices, and the empowering depiction of sex work, both in Camp Zero and in the Floating City. I also appreciated how the White Alice narrative was separate from the main narrative until near the end, leaving the reader uncertain of whether it was set in the future, the past, or concurrently with the rest of the plot.

The most important question: does the bear die, does the snake die, and do the dogs die?

There's a scene where a captured bear cub is used in a gambling game. The bear cub is implied to have been injured in the course of being captured, but, though its ultimate fate is unclear, no harm comes to it on screen. In another scene, we briefly encounter a pet snake. It's later implied to have already been dead when we arrived. In addition, there are several guard dogs working at Camp Zero. All survive.

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micaelamariem's review

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challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

I’m usually into dystopians but this one didn’t hit as well to me as they usually do. This is a great book for some people. There were interesting themes of environmentalism, feminism, colonialism, and survival. With multiple perspectives that weave into each other’s stories, it was interesting to see how it was all connected. But, it just wasn’t what I was expecting, and it was hard to focus on what the most important takeaway was. There was a lot of violence, and too many of it against animals for my liking. That being said, this book reminded me a bit of The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah, just in the survival in the Arctic kind of sense. And the feminist themes.

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