Reviews tagging 'Panic attacks/disorders'

A vida compartilhada em uma admirável órbita fechada by Becky Chambers

60 reviews

greystory's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

#2 in the Wayfarers series follows the stories of AI Sindra and human techie Pepper, who we met at the end of book 1, as they essentially explore the meaning of life. It feels too easy, too light to simply say "meaning of life." I'm not being flippant and I want it to really sink in what that means because that's what this book does - takes you on a journey of discovering what it means to live. Sindra has a great scene towards the end where she talks about how all sapient beings struggle with finding purpose as she tries to explain her own difficulties with the same task.

In many ways, A Closed and Common Orbit felt heavier than The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and there's probably many reasons for that. The subject matter of the meaning of life can be pretty heavy. We're focused on two characters in a linear, detailed story instead of the shorter vignettes with a more diverse cast from book 1. We watch Pepper's past as she learns just how cruel and cold the world can be. We watch Sindra as she struggles with the consequences of her own sacrifice and trying to find a way to belong and feel right. 

As their stories unfold, we see both the good and bad of the universe and each character finding a way to not just survive, but make the best of what's out there and really live. I cried a lot while reading this.

With that in mind, I feel like I should include some trigger warnings:
* Past child abuse
* Child death (implied, not on page)
* Animal violence and death
* Injury/Illness
* Seizure (or something like it)
* Panic attacks

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, and Child abuse

Moderate: Child death

seedreads's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful sad tense 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Violence, Slavery, Panic attacks/disorders, and Animal death

misty_kb's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse and Slavery

Moderate: Child death, Animal death, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, and Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Xenophobia

evbyrd's review against another edition

hopeful lighthearted reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Animal death, Child abuse, and Child death

Minor: Injury/Injury detail

biobeetle's review against another edition

emotional inspiring lighthearted reflective 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Dysphoria

Moderate: Ableism and Panic attacks/disorders

thoseoldcrows23's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful 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? Yes

5.0

Becky Chamber's books are always so comforting to me. there's something so quite and cozy about them that makes them just feel like a warm hug. I didn't love this one quite as much as the first Wayfarers book, but it still really hit the spot, and I'm very excited to continue the series. Specifically, I  loved how this book grapples with the question of personhood and the difference between what is right and what is allowed. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, and Animal death

Moderate: Blood, Child death, Cursing, Gore, Death, Grief, Medical content, Slavery, Gun violence, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Xenophobia, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

buttercat42's review against another edition

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Child death, Animal death, Child abuse, Mental illness, Animal cruelty, and Panic attacks/disorders

scifi_rat's review against another edition

adventurous sad 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

3.25

Plot: 3.5★
Prose: 3 ★
Pace: 4★
Concept/Execution: 4.5★/4★
Characters: 3★
Worldbuilding: 4.5★
Ending: 3.25★

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Abandonment, Animal death, Eating disorder, Violence, Child abuse, Colonisation, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Blood, Grief, Child death, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Excrement, Gaslighting, Gore, Infertility, Drug use, Vomit, and Xenophobia

dragon_named_fox's review against another edition

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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death and Slavery

Minor: Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Panic attacks/disorders

A question sci-fi has been asking since the birth of sci-fi, what is considered life? What makes a person, a person? We follow a human raised by and AI, and an AI being raised by that human, but also how they raise themselves in environments they weren't intended for. Both "sentients" were created for a purpose, but grew outside of that intended purpose, and struggle through what it means to be more than what you were made for.

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.