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mandkips's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Graphic: Terminal illness and Chronic illness
Minor: Death and Blood
strange_little_ranger's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Blood, Chronic illness, Death, Medical content, and Slavery
Minor: Blood, Chronic illness, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Sexual content, Slavery, Terminal illness, and Violence
tedonome's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.25
Graphic: Medical content and Terminal illness
nmcannon's review
- 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
Graphic: Colonisation and Kidnapping
Moderate: Body horror, Ableism, Gore, Blood, Terminal illness, and Violence
Minor: Sexual content and Vomit
book_snail's review
- 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? Yes
3.75
Graphic: Confinement, Medical content, Medical trauma, Slavery, Terminal illness, and Chronic illness
ephemeralbreeze's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Moderate: Sexual content, Body horror, Chronic illness, Confinement, Medical content, and Terminal illness
moonlitemuseum's review
- 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
The world building is almost painfully rich, depicting a world in ruin that doesn't feel at all dissimilar to our own, but the detail never feels as though it detracts from the central love story. The love story itself is deftly told, acquiescing to all the questions and doubts a reader might have but convincing them that yes, it can work, and should work, and both should stand to grow from it.
The range of sexualities and genders in the cast is astonishing. I felt a deep, warm ache reading this story—is this how it feels, to read compelling literature about gay women and nonbinary characters? I don't doubt that Asian readers, especially LGBT Vietnamese readers, will feel even more sated.
This is an incredible story and it is stunningly easy to read. If you want to read about dragons, women-loving-women, and an intriguing world ravaged by magical plagues, then you owe it to yourself to pick this up.
Moderate: Body horror, Medical content, Confinement, and Kidnapping
Minor: Sexual content and Terminal illness
There is a part wherebooksthatburn's review
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I like the way we learn about the eponymous "Vanishers" through context and what they left behind, with almost no discussion of what they were like because they're not the point: the focus is on the people and world they left behind. I tend to enjoy books which immerse me in a setting and expect me to keep up, and this one is full of that. It doesn't tell us really what the Vanishers were, and I didn't need it to. It's a quieter story, managing to feel deep and slow-paced while being a short book that didn't take very long to read. There are themes of community, isolation, and what fear leads people to do when they have incomplete information or ignore what they should know. It stays pretty focused on the relationship between the MCs, but the secondary characters are very important to the story in a way that made it feel like a small snippet of a full world.
I particularly love the way language is used here, making it clear that the characters are not speaking English (the language in which I read the story) by briefly describing the way the way gendered language is used by the characters in how they refer to themselves and each other, indicating that a character spoke only one word when what appears on the page is a phrase with two words, etc. This is the kind of thing that could have broken the immersion, but I liked having reminders that when they spoke to each other in this post-apocalyptic situation that they had language and references which I wouldn't share, it made their world feel more complete while still giving me the information I needed as a reader.
Apparently this is a queer retelling of a classic tale (
Moderate: Death and Terminal illness
Minor: Chronic illness
CW for parental death (backstory), illness, death.cryssalia's review
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Graphic: Chronic illness, Confinement, Terminal illness, Blood, and Medical content
Minor: Sexual content
dytiscusfriend's review
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Recommend for fans of queer romance enemy to lovers novels.
Graphic: Blood, Confinement, Death, Grief, Kidnapping, Medical content, Terminal illness, and Violence
Minor: Sexual content