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braggsy's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Forced institutionalization, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, and Grief
Minor: Domestic abuse, Murder, Blood, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, and Confinement
caitlin_123a's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Hate crime, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Animal cruelty, Death, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail
bootrat's review against another edition
dark
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
2.0
I think the fact that I read this book as an audiobook let me down with my enjoyment of it.
The book is a series of scenes in the narrator's life, with little context though you pick up fiarly quickly what's going on. However it didn't fit as cohesive narrative making it quite difficult to follow as an audiobook, especially when read while doing other tasks.
I may try to get hold of a physical copy to see if it's better when I can flick back and forth in order to understand things more clearly.
The book is a series of scenes in the narrator's life, with little context though you pick up fiarly quickly what's going on. However it didn't fit as cohesive narrative making it quite difficult to follow as an audiobook, especially when read while doing other tasks.
I may try to get hold of a physical copy to see if it's better when I can flick back and forth in order to understand things more clearly.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death and Animal cruelty
Moderate: Grief and Death
jackbifrost's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Animal death, Kidnapping, Xenophobia, Stalking, and Animal cruelty
Moderate: Suicide
nixmixus's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Prescient but also eerily fantastical. When faced with the twilight of fascism, how would you react?
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death
Moderate: Violence and Death
charnewb's review against another edition
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty and Death
james1star's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
Kay Dick’s ‘They’ was originally published in 1977, achieving some praise but was soon pushed out of print being lost until quite recently. This fact considering the book’s focus on censorship and the meaning of artistic expression leads to thoughts. I read up that she was a bisexual intellectual and yes Kay love that, I’m intrigued to maybe check out more from her but this didn’t exactly hit the mark for me.
In ‘They’ we follow an unnamed protagonist who lives alone by the coast with a dog - in my reading I thought this person was probably a woman as people call them ‘love’ a few times and just felt they were written female if that makes sense, I also believe they change from chapter to chapter but this may not be the case - across nine chapters. Each is like a mini story in itself with multiple characters that don’t repeat but there are some recurring events just different scenarios. As the novella progresses, the reader is introduced to the various aims and methods of the group known as ‘they’ who are threatening the main characters and general population to some extent. It’s clear the thing ‘they’ dislike the most is the arts and artistic expression whereby they over time confiscate/steal/destroy works of human creativity (books, paintings, records, poems, etc), terrorise/kidnap/imprison/kill offenders and try to enact conformity onto people. Displays of emotion (e.g. grief of a lost love which is seen as the worst as it signifies the fact love has meaning), non-conformity and those who live alone are also under attack. The characters attempt to live with the fear and put their own energy into creating works as fighting back wouldn’t prove useful, but this is a hard pill to swallow.
The group called ‘Them’ are written to be anonymous and all we know is their general dislike and the fact their numbers are growing. I think this is done well as Dick doesn’t add any humanity to them or their actions, the characters know they are a present threat and don’t bother to interact with them as this’ll obviously prove fruitless. What I didn’t like that much was how were given a similar level of disconnect with the named characters in each chapter/story. There are too many, too short stories so the reader can’t experience the characters in full, so no one is memorable, less and longer chapters would have been better in my opinion. BUT I do like the ambiguity of how each ends and this is probably what Dick was going for, so I respect it and see why but still didn’t really like it if that makes sense. The questioning and leaning into the horror genre were okay but maybe needed more expansion, it’s definitely a dystopia.
The writing was okay. I appreciate it’s meant to be rather fast paced but lots of short sentences did break the text up a little too much. There’s some nice metaphors and descriptive language that’s useful in describing locations for example. The violence isn’t exactly graphic but the recurrence of animal cruelty/death is something I hate to read so Yhh, but it could have been worse.
Last point: in the final chapter, a character is only referred to as ‘the autistic child’ whilst everyone else is given a name. This irked me so much, like Dick just give him a name!!! Having autism isn’t someone’s whole personality, it just felt unnecessary and like she was using the boy’s autism to belittle him in a sense, I dunno?? This was a small part but it stuck with me.
I’m happy this was found and I would say it’s worth reading but it’s possible the impact wasn’t something I picked up on. Possibly a re-read might prove useful but we shall see.
In ‘They’ we follow an unnamed protagonist who lives alone by the coast with a dog - in my reading I thought this person was probably a woman as people call them ‘love’ a few times and just felt they were written female if that makes sense, I also believe they change from chapter to chapter but this may not be the case - across nine chapters. Each is like a mini story in itself with multiple characters that don’t repeat but there are some recurring events just different scenarios. As the novella progresses, the reader is introduced to the various aims and methods of the group known as ‘they’ who are threatening the main characters and general population to some extent. It’s clear the thing ‘they’ dislike the most is the arts and artistic expression whereby they over time confiscate/steal/destroy works of human creativity (books, paintings, records, poems, etc), terrorise/kidnap/imprison/kill offenders and try to enact conformity onto people. Displays of emotion (e.g. grief of a lost love which is seen as the worst as it signifies the fact love has meaning), non-conformity and those who live alone are also under attack. The characters attempt to live with the fear and put their own energy into creating works as fighting back wouldn’t prove useful, but this is a hard pill to swallow.
The group called ‘Them’ are written to be anonymous and all we know is their general dislike and the fact their numbers are growing. I think this is done well as Dick doesn’t add any humanity to them or their actions, the characters know they are a present threat and don’t bother to interact with them as this’ll obviously prove fruitless. What I didn’t like that much was how were given a similar level of disconnect with the named characters in each chapter/story. There are too many, too short stories so the reader can’t experience the characters in full, so no one is memorable, less and longer chapters would have been better in my opinion. BUT I do like the ambiguity of how each ends and this is probably what Dick was going for, so I respect it and see why but still didn’t really like it if that makes sense. The questioning and leaning into the horror genre were okay but maybe needed more expansion, it’s definitely a dystopia.
The writing was okay. I appreciate it’s meant to be rather fast paced but lots of short sentences did break the text up a little too much. There’s some nice metaphors and descriptive language that’s useful in describing locations for example. The violence isn’t exactly graphic but the recurrence of animal cruelty/death is something I hate to read so Yhh, but it could have been worse.
Last point: in the final chapter, a character is only referred to as ‘the autistic child’ whilst everyone else is given a name. This irked me so much, like Dick just give him a name!!! Having autism isn’t someone’s whole personality, it just felt unnecessary and like she was using the boy’s autism to belittle him in a sense, I dunno?? This was a small part but it stuck with me.
I’m happy this was found and I would say it’s worth reading but it’s possible the impact wasn’t something I picked up on. Possibly a re-read might prove useful but we shall see.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence
Minor: Death, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, and Suicide
bookb1itch's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
I read this because it was featured on a list of great short fiction. In my school library, we are always on the lookout for engaging short fiction for our more reluctant older readers. I thought this might fit the bill. 107 pages later, I confess to not REALLY understanding it myself. I felt I was working harder than any teen would. Although the writing is clever and creepy, I didn't find enough to recommend we buy it for our library.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Animal cruelty, and Animal death
megan_bbender's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
This is a good book for a super quick and easy read. It was a bit disturbing at some parts but nothing goes into detail. To be honest, I never really understood what was going on because the writing is so simple. This concept is super interesting but I feel like there definitely could have been more done, I don't feel anything towards the plot or characters due to the lack of world-building.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Violence, and Animal cruelty
Moderate: Fire/Fire injury and Forced institutionalization
Minor: Domestic abuse
allyjshand's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
I loved the premise of this book and was took in by Margaret Atwood’s review. A dystopian novella, similar in concept to 1984, that discussed the suppression of art, love and emotion by an anonymous group. Some of Dick’s short stories had me gripped, particularly the first few. Although after that, the characters lacked distinguished personalities and I lost interest in the story slightly and failed to understand some of the nuances of the plot.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal death, Animal cruelty, and Forced institutionalization
Minor: Domestic abuse, Death, and Physical abuse