Reviews tagging 'Violence'

O Fim dos Homens by Christina Sweeney-Baird

8 reviews

brynalexa's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

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

2.75

Overall this novel was a breeze to get through; just enough diversity of prose and mystery to keep you turning the pages. I wished the idea that “power is bad no matter who has it” was more pervasive. It seemed like almost an afterthought or accidentally included. There was quite a bit of “cops are good and necessary” which was off-putting. You would hope the new world described wouldn’t include the violence of police. It felt a bit like the author threw in the notes from sensitivity readers all in the last 100 pages as an afterthought as well. Most of the characters had the same personality, even though it seems to be trying to be a feminist story. It came together in the end well. I would recommend it as an easy read if you aren’t hoping to take it too seriously. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Child death, Violence, Abandonment, Death of parent, Infertility, Death, Grief, Terminal illness, Domestic abuse, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Pandemic/Epidemic, Sexism, Misogyny, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, War, and Pregnancy

Minor: Cancer, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Mass/school shootings, Deportation, Gun violence, Alcohol, Genocide, and Fatphobia

nanirump's review against another edition

challenging hopeful informative reflective sad 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? Yes

3.75

This was a quick read with lots of short chapters. I found the multitude of characters a lot and I wasn't particularly attached to any of them and got them confused more than I didn't. I liked the varied exploration of peoples' experiences and it hit differently after the world actually having gone through a global pandemic. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Infertility, Grief, Pandemic/Epidemic, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Child death, and Death

Moderate: Sexism, Transphobia, Suicide, War, Violence, and Pregnancy

marshiereads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

2.75

I thought the premise was intriguing, but the science and perspectives fell short. They told mostly 30-40 something’s comfortable economically storied while telling us about really interesting things happening elsewhere like the civil war in what was China. The other thing is having literally lived through a pandemic now, the world didn’t react like it did in real life. They had one riot in the book about air travel and nothing else was mentioned (outside of the civil war in china). There was no anti-maskers or anti-vaxers, which I think should have felt good but it just made me angry honestly.

I didn’t like most of the characters you saw a decent amount of (Lisa and Katherine in particular), but found other people much more fascinating yet they were talked about for only a moment (the Russian woman and Rosamie). Amanda and Dawn were probably my favorite perspectives, with the southern standford researcher being the most forgettable. 

I think, if you’re going to do that large of a cast of characters, don’t make most of them from the UK or working in the UK, it’s literally most of them and they’re mostly sad and grieving which makes sense but doesn’t add to the overall narrative that a multi-perspective story generally does.

It’s worth a read but only just.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Gun violence, Suicide, Violence, Body horror, Blood, Death, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Child death, Sexism, Terminal illness, Miscarriage, Pandemic/Epidemic, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Physical abuse, Police brutality, and Vomit

liesthemoontells's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

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

3.25

On the balance, I enjoyed reading this book. It was easy to read, compelling, and did a good job at illustrating the multiplicities of grief throughout the book. However, this does get repetitive, and the number of viewpoints was excessive, yet still managed to overwhelmingly be straight, white, and western. The world building wasn't as well fleshed out as similar speculative plague fiction such as World War Z and in parts rang hollow.

I was also disappointed at how straight the book was - the one lesbian character who doesn't enter into a relationship with a woman out of necessity is an arrogant sociopath, and the stories of women who fall in love with women after most men have died out are kept at a distance from the reader through news articles and interviews. None of our first person characters enter into a WLW relationship other than the aforementioned sociopath.

It also isn't until 354 pages into a 403 page book that the author spends a moment considering what traumatic impact the Plague would have had on the trans community, treating them like the afterthought that the sole trans character in the book ironically calls out the medical establishment for doing.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Infertility, Medical trauma, Violence, Grief, Terminal illness, and Medical content

Moderate: Suicide, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Self harm, Toxic friendship, and Suicidal thoughts

auteaandtales's review against another edition

dark emotional funny reflective fast-paced

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

3.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Grief, Infertility, Medical content, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Violence

Minor: Racism, Gun violence, War, Cancer, Car accident, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Suicide, Trafficking, and Transphobia

shelbsleanne's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Grief

Moderate: Child death and Death of parent

Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Violence

luelle_'s review against another edition

challenging emotional sad 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? No

5.0

I considered giving 4.5 but no, it deserves the 5. This book became relatable in a way the author could never have fully anticipated immediately on its release. I just wish there had been more focus on the LGBTQ community than there was - particularly trans women. But they did feature, thank goodness. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Infertility, Pregnancy, and Grief

Moderate: Miscarriage

Minor: Cancer, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Forced institutionalization, Violence, Terminal illness, Suicide, and Murder

azrah786's review against another edition

challenging emotional sad fast-paced

3.0

 **I was provided with an ARC through netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

CW: virus/pandemic, (mass) death, infertility, mention of suicide, starvation, violence

A well-written debut that I think has both benefited and been hindered by its time of publication.

Through the accounts of various, predominantly women characters The End of Men is an account of a pandemic that wipes most of the male population off of the planet, spanning from a few days before to a couple of years after.
Having been written from 2018 it was quite scary to see just how the fictional events in the book mirrored what has been occurring with the coronavirus in reality. I feel like if this book had been published at a different time it would have perhaps been a hard-hitting read however, it would not have had as much of an impact emotionally as it does now.

That being said with the speed that events were occurring in the book, having real world experience of very similar happenings I couldn’t help but feel they sometimes felt a little unrealistic. One thing I do wish though was that the government in the real world had starting dealing with our pandemic a lot faster like the one in the book.

I really liked the narrative choice of the author to tell the story through various points of view from around the world and the short snappy chapters were great for the pacing.

What I had a problem with though was that I felt most of the characters didn’t have a distinctive voice. Other than all having different circumstances and relationships a lot of them felt the same which made it a little confusing to keep track of all the storylines. Even when the point of view jumped to a character in a different country the characterisation felt very surface level.

Also despite a handful of medical terms there weren’t that many elements of science so I personally wouldn’t class this book as a sci-fi but more a contemporary novel with a dystopian-esque setting. Though maybe this comes down to how the setting felt so close to reality that I can’t see it as a dystopian.

Nevertheless this was a thought-provoking read and I look forward to seeing what Christina Sweeney-Baird writes next.
Final Rating - 3/5 Stars 

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Death, Infertility, Suicide, and Violence