Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu

18 reviews

safiewafie's review against another edition

dark hopeful reflective sad 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Torture, Violence, Rape, Body horror, Child death, Racism, Sexual violence, Abortion, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Animal death, and War

Moderate: Trafficking and Suicide

rosemary_for_remembrance's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

Very beautifully written, and with a really impressive basis of history, literature, and physics. Sometimes quite difficult to read, because there's a lot of references to historical atrocities in here. 

Many of these stories are about cultural identity (especially Chinese/Chinese-American and Japanese/Japanese-American), family, and interpersonal (and intercultural) relationships, but I think the most common thread is about the complexities of human societies and how people respond during trying circumstances. And he has a lot of interesting things to say about that.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Torture, Murder, and Hate crime

atalea's review against another edition

dark informative inspiring sad medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia, Racism, Body horror, Violence, Blood, Rape, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual violence, Racial slurs, Genocide, Forced institutionalization, and Medical content

Moderate: Alcohol and Gaslighting

Minor: Child death, Suicide, Child abuse, Pregnancy, Animal death, and War

clarehiyama's review against another edition

emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

I love speculative fiction short stories, and this was a really great collection. Very creative but grounded, it was mostly low fantasy/soft sci-fi set in a fictional version of our world (with a couple fun exceptions of evolutionary sci-fi where Liu describes the cultures and physiology of alien species). I appreciated Liu’s expertise/apparently very detailed research on both history and science/technology. Any tech/science seems very realistic (to my non-expert mind, at least), and I really appreciated his explorations of the mark our histories, both personal and collective, make on the present. I also learned some really important history of my own heritage, which was about Imperial Japan’s Unit 731, which tortured and experimented on their imperial subjects in China during WWII, and whose scientists were not punished by the US/Allies because they wanted the use of their research. It’s a shameful and disgusting chapter of history, but written about really thoughtfully and creatively by Liu, who brings to life imagined debates about what it would mean to go back in time to be able to witness historic tragedies. Interesting ethical and philosophical questions (and definitely the only story with serious need for content warnings— it’s quite graphic). Anyway, I loved this book and will be reading more of his work! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Slavery, Rape, Torture, Sexual violence, and War

fluffballpanda's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

Finally finished it! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Medical trauma, Slavery, Genocide, Rape, War, and Violence

Moderate: Xenophobia, Suicide, Torture, Genocide, Sexual violence, and Slavery

Minor: Kidnapping and Death of parent

dufremde's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.5

reviewing short story collections is so difficult; how do you weigh the writing craft, the themes, the curation, and are the highs more impactful than the lows, and what parts are going to stick with me a month from now? a uneven reading experience made this even harder, so I guess I'll just go with quick impressions:

- the stuff that worked REALLY worked, but a few stories left me absolutely cold and/or sent me into a depression spiral. let's just talk about the bad experiences first: the cruelty of "literomancer" felt pointless and jarring, "the regular" was faux-edgy in a way that felt slimy to read sometimes, and to be perfectly honest, the title story—yes, the one that won all the awards—was so mid in its themes and execution that I was just baffled after reading it. like that was some Amy Tan shit. overall, I think Liu has an issue writing women that feel real, and that makes me sad. and to me, an East Asian, some of the extremely East Asian tropes felt trite and tired, even in the stories that I liked.

- onto better times... I loved the intensity of both "bookmaking habits" and "comparative cognition," the imagination that went into both was astounding and I felt like I could have devoured an extended compendium of both concepts.

- I quite enjoyed the loosely connected trio of "comparative cognition" + "waves" + "mono no aware." it had the makings of a longer series, and I liked the combination of slice-of-life/character study with the overarching speculative sci-fi plotline.

- "all the flavors" and "litigation master" had that magical realism thing going for them, weaving in well-known Chinese literary figures, but I'm not sure they'll stick with me. (I was scared "all the flavors" was going to go the way of "literomancer" so I'm glad it stayed optimistic/open-ended. still, I wonder about including both when they kind of had a similar structure.)

- "trans-pacific tunnel" + "man who ended history" had Things To Say, and I'm lowkey mad he put the latter story at the very end, although I do think it is the showstopper of the entire collection. however, I have mixed feelings; I loved the concept of the documentary (which Liu says was inspired by Ted Chiang) and the intersection between time travel and transnational historical trauma really landed, but unfortunately for me he chose to center the story around Unit 731, which is one of my personal triggers, so I had to unfocus my eyes for a lot of the actual discussion over what happened. it's one of the most brutal episodes of WWII and still has reverberating effects, and I appreciate what Liu was trying to do with the sociopolitical commentary but I also felt physically ill while reading it. the entire collection needed massive content warnings, but especially this last story!

anyway I had to start another book at 2 a.m. to act as a palate cleanser lmao thanks bud

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Rape, Violence, and Sexual violence

ruthhelizabeth's review against another edition

challenging dark informative medium-paced

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Racism, Racial slurs, Murder, Misogyny, Medical trauma, Gun violence, Gore, Confinement, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Rape, Pregnancy, Genocide, Kidnapping, Hate crime, Xenophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Death, Blood, War, Torture, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Suicide

lynxpardinus's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional informative reflective sad

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Trafficking, Violence, Colonisation, Genocide, Medical content, Medical trauma, Child abuse, Death of parent, Racism, Suicide, War, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Rape, Racial slurs, Infidelity, Police brutality, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Cancer, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexual violence, and Slavery

Minor: Dementia and Sexual content

kalira's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-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

5.0

Ken Lie has a brilliant approach to weaving together history and realism with fantastical/speculative fiction elements, drawing it all into poignant and deeply emotional relief.

It took me a long time to read this anthology, largely because the stories are very good . . . and sometimes, so painful and heavy and immediate that upon finishing I needed to set the book aside and take some time. Both to process the story and to give myself a little emotional space to breathe.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Sexual violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Genocide, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Rape, Child death, Religious bigotry, Slavery, Classism, Cultural appropriation, Gore, Trafficking, Vomit, Hate crime, Fire/Fire injury, Body horror, Death, War, Alcohol, Colonisation, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Racism, Torture, Violence, Chronic illness, and Grief

konfx's review against another edition

challenging inspiring reflective medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Stalking, Violence, War, Xenophobia, Torture, Gore, Mass/school shootings, Medical trauma, Genocide, Grief, Murder, and Racism