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wecallthewind's review
adventurous
emotional
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror
Moderate: Transphobia
novella42's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
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
4.5
This book was bizarre and beautiful, and I genuinely don't know why I pushed myself through extreme discomfort (body horror is a trigger for my C-PTSD) to finish it. Except that I loved Derek. And Delilah and Darkness. I needed to know what happened to them, but more than that, I think I seriously needed to know how they solved the disaster of being trapped in a haunted capitalist hellscape. Mood, right?
I'm recovering from extreme professional burnout right now, and Derek's unwavering devotion to his job brought up some Feelings™ for me. (I literally coined some marketing phrases involving the "family" of a nonprofit where I once worked. It was toxic AF and I have realized that was one way I coped with inhuman demands, by mentally adjusting myself to survive there.)
On that leveI, and also as a neurodivergent person with a disability, I resonated strongly with Derek's aching loneliness and desperation to connect with any other humans, even those who treated him like a tool or an outsider. I deeply appreciated the way the author handles the concept of defects, being discordant, being too much, too sensitive, too different.
This book hits differently than FINNA, I think because Derek's growth starts from his desperate loyalty and love for something that hurts him. To me it reads like Steven Universe in a Stranger Things world.
Also, speaking as someone with annoyingly sensitive mirror neurons or whatever it is that makes me experience other people's physical pain when I witness it, huge props to Cipri for the way they depicted that phenomenon in the book. One related scene to that, I absolutely had to put the book down and go get a drink. Dear God. I hope for your sake, Cipri, that this was an homage to Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, and not something you struggle with too.
I probably won't be able to read this book again but I am glad I read it and will recommend it to anyone who can handle Stranger Things. Beautiful and weird and wonderful.
I'm recovering from extreme professional burnout right now, and Derek's unwavering devotion to his job brought up some Feelings™ for me. (I literally coined some marketing phrases involving the "family" of a nonprofit where I once worked. It was toxic AF and I have realized that was one way I coped with inhuman demands, by mentally adjusting myself to survive there.)
On that leveI, and also as a neurodivergent person with a disability, I resonated strongly with Derek's aching loneliness and desperation to connect with any other humans, even those who treated him like a tool or an outsider. I deeply appreciated the way the author handles the concept of defects, being discordant, being too much, too sensitive, too different.
This book hits differently than FINNA, I think because Derek's growth starts from his desperate loyalty and love for something that hurts him. To me it reads like Steven Universe in a Stranger Things world.
Also, speaking as someone with annoyingly sensitive mirror neurons or whatever it is that makes me experience other people's physical pain when I witness it, huge props to Cipri for the way they depicted that phenomenon in the book. One related scene to that, I absolutely had to put the book down and go get a drink. Dear God. I hope for your sake, Cipri, that this was an homage to Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, and not something you struggle with too.
I probably won't be able to read this book again but I am glad I read it and will recommend it to anyone who can handle Stranger Things. Beautiful and weird and wonderful.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Vomit, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Murder
Moderate: Classism, Cursing, Grief, Ableism, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Islamophobia, Sexual content, Slavery, Transphobia, Alcohol, Animal death, Animal cruelty, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
Some more detailed spoiler-level content warnings for anyone who needs them. These are not comprehensive, because I think I have already mentally blocked some stuff. (Yay, fun brain tricks!)jesseybean's review
adventurous
reflective
fast-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? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror
Minor: Transphobia
gavgaddis's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
fast-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? Yes
5.0
A phenomenal followup to Finna that is both an excellent stand-alone and an excellent addition to the world established by the first book. Not unlike how Peter Clines' `14 and The Fold partner with each other perfectly. This review only covers details you'd already be able to intuit from the description above with one easy-to-guess implication of a spoiler.
Derek works at LitenVärld. He's socially-awkward but limitlessly sincere and great at being a LitenVärld employee. He also lives in a shipping container in the parking lot. Derek's going through some issues with his body and now he's confronted with the extra headache of four near-identical copies of him, all a glimpse into different people Derek could have been, or could be.
It's queerness. Cipri's built a phenomenal novella around queerness, neurodivergency, or both. One enables enough self-introspection to discover the other, leading to murky waters so intermixed it's no wonder Defekt functions as a story about coming to terms with one (or both). It also directly shines a light on the guilt and self-loathing necessary to sit by and watch others crushed under the boot of power-hungry corporate drones and the courage needed to step up and do something. Defekt has little sympathy for people who were "just taking orders."
Finna and Defekt are both like old-school Star Trek in that way, the papier mache covering of sci-fi intentionally left as minimal as possible so as to not allow even the least-attentive of readers the argument "well that's just how things are in that character's world." Cipri grabs the reader by the collar and forces them to look at characters being complicit in empowering corporations and/or the megalomaniacal white cis men with superiority complexes they foster. I love it dearly.
Derek works at LitenVärld. He's socially-awkward but limitlessly sincere and great at being a LitenVärld employee. He also lives in a shipping container in the parking lot. Derek's going through some issues with his body and now he's confronted with the extra headache of four near-identical copies of him, all a glimpse into different people Derek could have been, or could be.
It's queerness. Cipri's built a phenomenal novella around queerness, neurodivergency, or both. One enables enough self-introspection to discover the other, leading to murky waters so intermixed it's no wonder Defekt functions as a story about coming to terms with one (or both). It also directly shines a light on the guilt and self-loathing necessary to sit by and watch others crushed under the boot of power-hungry corporate drones and the courage needed to step up and do something. Defekt has little sympathy for people who were "just taking orders."
Finna and Defekt are both like old-school Star Trek in that way, the papier mache covering of sci-fi intentionally left as minimal as possible so as to not allow even the least-attentive of readers the argument "well that's just how things are in that character's world." Cipri grabs the reader by the collar and forces them to look at characters being complicit in empowering corporations and/or the megalomaniacal white cis men with superiority complexes they foster. I love it dearly.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia and Transphobia
Moderate: Body horror and Blood
pastelkerstin's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
LOVED this! I already really liked Finna but in my opinion Defekt flows better and effectively doubles down on the theme of anti-capitalism. Really good, really queer, a wild fucking time, go read it!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Gun violence, Murder, Death, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Confinement, Bullying, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Vomit, and Medical content
Moderate: Transphobia
Minor: Alcohol, Islamophobia, and Sexual content
jmmd's review
adventurous
emotional
funny
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
Content Warnings
Moderate: Blood, Violence, Toxic relationship, and Gaslighting
Minor: Bullying, Transphobia, and Slavery
booksthatburn's review against another edition
dark
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
*I received a free review copy in exchange for an honest review of this book.
Defekt follows an employee trying to keep doing his best as his world cracks and gets stranger despite his efforts to fit in and follow the manual. I love the chapter openers from the employee manual. The overly cheery corporate-speak helps to establish the tone of the book, especially when the MC is very familiar with this document (or with others like it). It’s informing the world and the characters’ inner lives at the same time, and it’s very funny on top of all that. The MC is in the perfect middle zone between technically being an unreliable narrator and also never actually lying to the reader (and not trying to either). The book is so observant and the MC is so clueless, and it was so wonderful to view this strange hyper-corporate world through the eyes of someone who loves it because it's the only thing they know. The secondary characters were great counterpoints to the MC's perspective while also feeling like full people separate from his conception of them, it's great world-building (especially for such a short story).
This is a sequel to FINNA (and contains a minor spoiler for it), but DEFEKT can completely stand alone. I'll do my normal sequel check but some of the answers might feel wonky because the author has said FINNA was intended to be stand-alone (and therefore wasn't trying to leave hanging threads for a sequel to grab on to). This doesn't wrap up anything left hanging from the previous book, but it does temporally situate the books in relation to each other very succinctly and I appreciated that touch. The whole story starts in this book and wasn't present in the first one, and it is its own story in a connected universe. I don't think it left anything in particular for additional sequels to pick up, but I would be very interested in more stories based in this location, especially given how DEFEKT ends. While I don't think anything was left open on purpose, the world is open enough to give room for more stories told here while being specific enough to be interesting. The MC is different from the first book and his voice feels distinct from the previous book's MC. Finally, this would absolutely make sense if you hadn't read the first one, but, again, it does open with a minor spoiler from FINNA so I do recommend reading FINNA first if you're planning on eventually having read both books.
Defekt follows an employee trying to keep doing his best as his world cracks and gets stranger despite his efforts to fit in and follow the manual. I love the chapter openers from the employee manual. The overly cheery corporate-speak helps to establish the tone of the book, especially when the MC is very familiar with this document (or with others like it). It’s informing the world and the characters’ inner lives at the same time, and it’s very funny on top of all that. The MC is in the perfect middle zone between technically being an unreliable narrator and also never actually lying to the reader (and not trying to either). The book is so observant and the MC is so clueless, and it was so wonderful to view this strange hyper-corporate world through the eyes of someone who loves it because it's the only thing they know. The secondary characters were great counterpoints to the MC's perspective while also feeling like full people separate from his conception of them, it's great world-building (especially for such a short story).
This is a sequel to FINNA (and contains a minor spoiler for it), but DEFEKT can completely stand alone. I'll do my normal sequel check but some of the answers might feel wonky because the author has said FINNA was intended to be stand-alone (and therefore wasn't trying to leave hanging threads for a sequel to grab on to). This doesn't wrap up anything left hanging from the previous book, but it does temporally situate the books in relation to each other very succinctly and I appreciated that touch. The whole story starts in this book and wasn't present in the first one, and it is its own story in a connected universe. I don't think it left anything in particular for additional sequels to pick up, but I would be very interested in more stories based in this location, especially given how DEFEKT ends. While I don't think anything was left open on purpose, the world is open enough to give room for more stories told here while being specific enough to be interesting. The MC is different from the first book and his voice feels distinct from the previous book's MC. Finally, this would absolutely make sense if you hadn't read the first one, but, again, it does open with a minor spoiler from FINNA so I do recommend reading FINNA first if you're planning on eventually having read both books.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood
Moderate: Bullying, Violence, and Death
Minor: Transphobia
CW for bullying, transphobia, blood, violence, death.
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