Reviews

Elysium(blackstone Audio) by Jennifer Marie Brissett

books4biana's review

4.0

It took a while before I realized what I was reading. Like a collection of stories or memories, slightly joined but not really. The last 3rd of the book really tied things together.

Nothing like the movie.

chana_aurora's review against another edition

4.0

I couldn’t put this book down. I heard it was trippy and it was. I really liked the trying too figure out exactly what was going on and even though I figured it out part way through, I still was engaged.

misha_ali's review against another edition

2.0

This was an interesting idea and a really interesting concept to play with, but the execution was a little jumbled for me. Even at the short length it is, it feels too long in the set up and too rushed in the conclusion. The various iterations of the main characters switch up too much and are basically different people with similar names, so the character work here fell short for me, which resulted in a reduced overall investment in the story and premise.

amgee017's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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

3.0

hiimkayte's review against another edition

5.0

I listened to this as an audiobook and loved it. As the scenes switch between characters/place/time, the author does such a great job of quickly bringing you in - helping you understand what's going on, what the conflict is, and making you interested and rooting for the characters, before upending you into another place and time.
This was such an interesting way to show different parts of the world through a major sci-fi event (alien invasion). Kind of like how World War Z showed vignettes from different perspectives... but looser, and weirder.

treykagirl's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

angelofmusic317's review against another edition

mysterious 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? No

2.25

The book started off wonderfully. The author kept you just intrigued and confused enough to want to continue the story but had enough continuous signs and symbols to keep you on track. After the first third of the book, my only complaint was the overuse of sex scenes that did nothing to enhance the story. However, somewhere around the middle of the story, when the author starts to drive the plot towards understanding what is really happening, the entire beautiful craftsmanship of the story disappears entirely. The story becomes a spaghetti-like mess of ideas thrown onto the paper. The conclusion was fast, disappointing, failed to clarify the signs and symbols, and was just generally a mess. I wanted to love this book but felt that it literally lost its plot. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Genocide, War, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Violence

Moderate: Death of parent, Colonisation, Xenophobia, and Death

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Murder, Mental illness, Confinement, and Medical content

helianthus13666's review against another edition

I was interested in the beginning and thought I was going to love this book but when the characters changed names, gender and relationships, it got confusing real fast and I started to lose interest. Someone said that the ending is worth the headache but I just couldn't finish it through. I tried I swear. 

cornsyrup's review against another edition

challenging mysterious slow-paced

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

2.25

Hm...

I appreciate what the author was going for, the concept of a story being told via a computer program that's struggling with it so it keeps replacing characters with different variations of themselves was really interesting. But ultimately, I think it fell flat for me.

I get that it was meant to be about

love in all its forms,

but the way it was written it really read to me like

Adrian/Adrianne and Antoine/Antoinette were together more out of an obligation, with Adrian/Adrianne actually wanting to be with Hector/Helen. I actually thought that would be how it would end.

It's a shame, because I love a good exploration of character and relationships! But I think it spent so long jumping between different settings that I didn't get a good feel for the relationships between the characters.

dixiet's review against another edition

4.0

I've never read anything quite like this. I couldn't put it down, and am not likely to forget it.