Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit & Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction by Joshua Whitehead

5 reviews

scarroll178's review

emotional hopeful mysterious reflective 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? No

5.0

A collection of some amazing and well crafted stories! History of the New World blew me away.

“Don’t do this to us” and “Why did you make me do that?” will haunt me forever.

I also really loved Seed Children, especially

the reveal at the end that the mother figure fighting for the children is only sixteen herself.

But honestly, I thought all of the stories were great, maybe with the exception of Eloise. But I’m not the target audience, so maybe that story just flew over my head. 

I will say, the Intro was very challenging for me to read; I didn’t understand some of the words the editor used. But the stories in the book were much easier for me to read, so don’t freak out if the Intro flies over your head. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Murder, and Kidnapping

Moderate: War

skudiklier's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

• 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? It's complicated

4.75

I never really like reading short story collections because it takes me so long to get into them and then by the time I'm invested that's right when it ends. Then that's on loop the whole book. But that said I did really like this collection! Super super interesting worlds, some of which I really wanted more of, but the stories were all a great length on their own. Lots of beautiful writing and apocalyptic stories with at least some hope in them. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Colonisation, Transphobia, and Violence

Moderate: Medical content, Alcoholism, Murder, and War

heavy CW for apocalypse and climate crises/climate anxiety

spinesinaline's review

challenging emotional hopeful 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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Death, Violence, and Colonisation

Moderate: War, Medical content, and Alcoholism

maeverose's review against another edition

hopeful

3.5

This is a very beautiful and  needed collection of stories by queer indigenous authors. As is expected with short story collections, they were hit or miss for me. I’m including my ratings and content warnings for each story in this review so if you don’t want to see the content warnings feel free to skip it.

A note on my ratings: I rate books/stories on my personal enjoyment level, not on any objective writing or storytelling factors. (1= hated it, 2= not for me, 3= just fine, 4= really liked it, 5= loved it)

• Abacus by Nathan Adler (3⭐️)

Cw: sexual content (very minor)

• History of The New World by Adam Garnet Jones (4⭐️)

Cw: sexual content, slavery, murder, racism, xenophobia, violence, injury, colonization, abandonment, pregnancy

• The Ark of the Turtle’s Back by Jaye Simpson (3.5⭐️)

Cw: transphobia, sexual content, slavery, infertility (sort of), grief, medical content, colonization, pregnancy/baby talk

• How To Survive The Apocalypse For Native Girls by Kai Minosh Pyle (2⭐️)

There’s nothing wrong with this story it’s just not for me, largely because of the narrator’s voice. They sounded very young and naive for 16 and it irked me.

Cw: transphobia, f slur, child abuse, fire, murder, minor mention of war

• Andwànikàdjigan by Gabriel Castilloux Calderon (5⭐️)

This story made me feel so much and so strongly in such a short amount of pages. wow

Cw: murder, death of loved ones, grief, fire, descriptions of scars similar to self harm scars (but not self harm), descriptions of cutting for non self harm reasons, gun violence, colonization, blood, confinement, death of a parent

• Story for a Bottle by Darcy Little Badger (2.5⭐️)

Cw: kidnapping, confinement, animal harm, child abuse

• Seed Children by Mari Kurisato (2⭐️)

Cw: blood, death, cannibalism, injury, gun violence, religious bigotry, violence, murder, vomit

• Nameless by Nazbah Tom (3.5⭐️)

Cw: war, murder, alcohol, addiction, vomit

• Eloise by David A. Robertson (4⭐️)

I don’t know how I feel about this one. I really liked the writing style and the concepts

but I’m confused why Emma wanted to forget Cassie. Unless I missed it they never explained that and it felt like something that should’ve been explained.

Cw: grief, depression, cancer

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Grief, Murder, Violence, Death, Abandonment, Transphobia, and Child abuse

Moderate: Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Blood, Sexual content, Colonisation, Religious bigotry, Alcohol, Confinement, and Vomit

Minor: Xenophobia, Infertility, Pregnancy, Drug use, War, Slavery, Racism, Addiction, and Cannibalism

A heavy theme of climate crisis in a lot of the stories

readingwithkaitlyn's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional 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? No

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Trafficking, Racism, Violence, Grief, Self harm, Kidnapping, Colonisation, Murder, Slavery, Transphobia, Child abuse, Homophobia, and Genocide

Minor: Cancer

Climate change, residential schools, unmarked graves, starvation, displacement, imprisonment.