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Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

75 reviews

angelbabe_cj's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging hopeful tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75


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mimirenee's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5


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rcsreads's review against another edition

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

3.5

The space ship is a great analogy for being trapped in slavery, you can't run away into a vacuum. The actual science of this space ship though, is insane like it has a tiny sun with floors for growing crops round it that all require drastically different environments and you can see people on other floors and they're upside down. What? If you take the ship purely as an analogy and don't think about science then this is a really interesting way to write about slavery and trauma full of diverse, queer and neurodivergent characters. The A deck ruling class are the white, heteronormative colonisers and the rest of the alphabet of decks represent the various cultures that the West enslaved and colonised. The analogy is good but the actual plot of the story gets confusing. 
 The story of Aster learning about her mother through the journals she left behind started out so well and then kind of got lost later. We just dropped it for the middle of the book and then it reappeared at the end with a lot of solutions which clearly happened off page. 
 I could see why Giselle was there to show us the effects of trauma but i have no idea why she was Aster's friend, she seemed to hate her a lot and they had nothing in common apart from living on the same floor of the massive ship. I have no idea what the Lieutenants motives were, he was a cartoon villain who just decided one day that a random child was his nemesis and he was going to mess with her for the rest of his life.
 It was very readable and I enjoyed it but this review seems to think otherwise...

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dragon_s_hoard's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0


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lim's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0


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camilleion's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious 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


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sarkenobi's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75


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pearlpool's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense 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? It's complicated

4.5

this was INSANE…….. so heartbreaking and beautiful :( WOULD HIGHLY RECOMMEND LOOKING AT THE CONTENT WARNINGS!!!!!

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auteaandtales's review against another edition

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4.0


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tigger89's review against another edition

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dark mysterious 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

5.0

This book was incredible. I've never met a protagonist quite like Aster: queer, neurodivergent, sharp in both manner and intelligence, and scarred by a lifetime of trauma but hell-bent on getting her way. The rest of the cast didn't disappoint either, with a varied collection of complexly-written and -motivated characters comprising both the heroic and villainous casts. Theo was an incredible supporting character. Again, complicated and frustrating, but I was so glad we got to meet him and even spend a chapter in his head. I would have liked to hear more from his point of view in fact, though I admit it wouldn't have served the plot any better. I just want more Theo, and I want him to be happy. It's a purely selfish desire. And no, there's nothing on AO3. I checked.

Anyway. There were a lot of ways this book could have gone wrong. The concept of "antebellum slavery recreated aboard a generation ship in transit" was ambitious, and I can think of few other authors who could have done it justice — N.K. Jemisin, perhaps? Jemisin wouldn't have done the character work in the same way though, so it would have been a very different book. I thought the level of scientific crunch was perfect for the story Solomon was trying to tell. The science seemed mostly sound to my layman's understanding(with the exception of the siluminium), but rather than taking on a starring role it formed the backbone that supported the main point of the story, which was about the society that relied on that science to survive.

My only complaint about this book is that the pacing gets a little weird in the last third. A lot of time passes, but the plot remains urgent, so there's some very weird time skips that leave the narrative feeling disjointed, even rushed at times. But this only brings the overall score down to maybe a 4.75, so I rounded it up. If you're someone who likes your sci-fi with science that at least puts up a pretense of being grounded in fact, but who still prefers a focus on character and society over hard scientific crunch, the style of this book would probably appeal to you. Just be mindful of the content warnings, as there's quite a lot of them and Solomon pulls no punches.

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