Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Autonomous by Annalee Newitz

5 reviews

indeedithappens's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Drug use, and Slavery

Moderate: Mental illness, Self harm, Mass/school shootings, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Police brutality, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Abandonment, Death, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Xenophobia, Addiction, Alcohol, Blood, Confinement, Cursing, Gun violence, Homophobia, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Stalking, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Body horror, Child abuse, Classism, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Torture, Toxic friendship, Trafficking, Bullying, Colonisation, Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Gaslighting, Grief, Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, Gore, Medical content, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, and Rape

garbagebarge69's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective tense medium-paced

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

2.5

If you took the

man/robot sexual romance

out, the book would be cut in half.

Not saying that plot is bad, or that it doesn't fit contextually; just like, how

much exposition do we need dedicated to a solider getting descriptively horny for a robot?

And not like, a human-looking robot. Like a robot built with all the passionate humanity of a Jeep Cherokee.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Injury/Injury detail, Slavery, Police brutality, and Violence

Moderate: Sexual content, Classism, Trafficking, and Drug use

Minor: Drug abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Grief, Torture, Gore, and Sexual assault

imjustadow's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense 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? It's complicated

2.25

This is such a complicated review to write.

On the one hand, I loved Jack. Bisexual, anti-corporate, emancipator pirate lady? I'm all in, say less. Her life and experiences were very enjoyable to read and I really enjoyed her interactions with the other characters in her insane life.

But GOD, the stuff with Eliasz just kind of ruined everything for me. I don't like the way his "relationship" with Paladin played out starting from THAT chapter (if you've read it, you know which one I'm talking about). The fact that it was never resolved really made having any sympathy at all for Eliasz' quest to stop Jack next to impossible

Eliasz, at the end of the day, is a deeply homophobic cop who has no issue whatsoever with killing people to get what he wants. And more disgusting than that, he feels all of his actions are justified by him "following the law." He mentions that his time hunting down child traffickers was hell and that now that he was in patent law everything was simple and black and white, but that's such a one-dimensional state for a character to begin in, and never grow from as a person.

I loved the worldbuilding, the concept is fascinating, but I really ultimately did not enjoy this book, and I really really wanted to

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Transphobia, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Pandemic/Epidemic, Torture, Addiction, Homophobia, Violence, Grief, Medical trauma, Cursing, Blood, Trafficking, Injury/Injury detail, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Sexual assault, Kidnapping, Rape, Slavery, Drug use, Murder, and Sexual content

At the end of the day, I would say that the stuff with Eliasz represents a more realistic depiction of someone with deeply internalized homophobia who never actually improves from that point. And if we're considering how some people in real life are, that's not abnormal. However, to write Eliasz's actions out to be anything other than a villain in the story and then to give him a "happy" ending, it just wasn't for me. The author made choices I wouldn't have, and that is their prerogative. I just really didn't enjoy the choices made for Eliasz

m_petranoff's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

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

3.75

While the dystopian world building is grounded and level, I was disappointed by some of the (lack of) character development. Where the narrative does what good speculative fiction should do--exploring current trends played out to their potentially dystopian outcomes--it doesn't always hit the mark with treating each of its subjects fully. If you're only here for the plot, you'll have a good time (with lots of blood and gore), but if you're here for the thoughtful look into a potential future and characters who grapple with that future, look elsewhere.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Child abuse, Rape, Sexual content, and Sexual assault

tqlikesbooks's review

adventurous challenging dark reflective medium-paced

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

2.75

 

“Everybody is an outsider, if you go deep enough. The trick is reassuring people that you’re their kind of outsider.”

Autonomous follows Jack, a drug pirate in the year 2144. She reverse engineers and manufactures drugs for those who can't afford to pay the monopolistic pharmaceutical corporations. When her latest pirated drug causes lethal side-effects, she finds herself pursued by military agents.
The IPC agents sent to stop Jack are Eliasz, and his indentured robot partner, Paladin; who start to form an bond neither of them expected.

My favourite aspect of this story is that we follow two rivalling narratives, who are clearly antagonists from each other's perspectives. We have no clear villain or hero in the story, yet we can sympathise with each of their motives to some extent (except that one character who just comes of as a creepy, authoritarian homophobe).

Newitz renders a bleak vision of the future in which indenture laws for both humans and robots has led to a lucrative form of slave labour and corporation patent laws have led to rocketing drug prices that ultimately only the wealthy can afford. The world-building is fascinating and explores lots of political, technological and societal ideas. There was a fair bit of build up throughout the story to what happened to be a fairly anti-climatic ending.

Overall I found I wanted a lot more from the story. I liked much of the story but I really loathed some others parts.

—why parts of this book belong in the bad place (possible spoiler territory below) —

Gender identity and sexuality is explored in some interesting ways, particularly with the character of Paladin, a genderless robot whose human companions project their own expectations (and desires in some cases) onto. This results in Paladin changing pronouns from 'he' to 'she' to appease another character (though Paladin still considers themself to be genderless). At points the relationship between Eliasz and Paladin was very uncomfortable to read, though the author clearly does not attempt to present this as a healthy representation of gender identity and sexual autonomy. However, it still manages manages to be very icky overall and is not addressed by the end of the story. The use of the f slur seemed completely unnecessary. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Sexual content, Sexual assault, and Slavery