Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

39 reviews

sadhbh2525's review

adventurous dark 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Homophobia, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Sexual assault, Suicide, Transphobia, Violence, Xenophobia, Murder, Gaslighting, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Misogyny, Torture, Grief, and Death of parent

Minor: Rape, Sexual violence, Abortion, and Pregnancy

dejahentendu's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional

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

4.5

Wow! What a first novel. I was obsessed with this book,  grabbing it to read every moment I had to spare. I'm generally not that interested in war stories any longer, but this was so much more. I don't want to give away too much, but it was rich and full and had varied and realistic reactions to really bad circumstances. This book deserves every iota of attention it's gotten.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Genocide, Homophobia, Misogyny, Violence, Xenophobia, and Murder

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

indy_go_go22's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful medium-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

3.75

The pacing was a little odd. I think this book might have tried to tackle too much in too few pages.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexism, Suicide, Death of parent, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Torture, Violence, Trafficking, and War

ceruleanseas's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Homophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual assault, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Gun violence, Hate crime, Incest, Pedophilia, Rape, Suicide, Torture, Kidnapping, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Slavery, Trafficking, Abortion, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

valjeanval's review against another edition

adventurous tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I ended up pretty mixed on this one. At first, I was really bored. The lawful neutral protagonist who can't get a clue in a dystopia that just didn't make any sense.

You want the human race to survive by both training women for war and also relegating them to a breeding harem? And you are controlled breeding people but also have sex as much as you want with the concubines but being gay is not ok? I see the inspiration in other controlled societies, but this one seemed like it shouldn't have lasted 2 years, especially with a leader as lacking in charisma or skills as Jole.

It feels like the message of the book is a good one, but for me that message superseded the actual writing, and made the story as a whole fall a bit flat for me. It still won the Hugo, and while it wouldn't have been my pick, I see why it got the nomination. The aliens are good, the plot once you're off of Gaea station is intriuging, and the pace is sharp. As a rule though, I just kept coming back to the fact that I didn't really enjoy spending time with any of the characters, and that this was one of the dumber dystopias out there, built more to highlight reality's flaws than because it makes sense for the world-building.

So yeah, I'm going with 4 stars because it was better than a lot of things I give three stars, but overall kind of meh.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Gun violence, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual assault, Suicide, Xenophobia, Excrement, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

abarnakwn_ourcolourfulpages's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Suicide, Transphobia, Violence, Xenophobia, Mass/school shootings, Murder, Toxic friendship, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child abuse, Homophobia, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Pregnancy

ablanket42'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
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Sexism, Sexual assault, Violence, Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, and War

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Genocide, Hate crime, Homophobia, Pedophilia, Colonisation, and Classism

Minor: Incest, Pedophilia, Abortion, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

raptorq's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Homophobia, Sexism, Sexual assault, Suicide, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Murder, Gaslighting, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Sexual harassment and Colonisation

maryellen's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense fast-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Suicide, Blood, Grief, Murder, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Rape, Sexism, Gaslighting, and War

talonsontypewriters's review

adventurous dark 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

2.5

Excluding a few awkward bits each, the worldbuilding and plot are both fairly strong -- one twist especially spiked my enjoyment -- but I don't honestly feel like the themes, heavy-handed as they are, delved quite as deep as they could have. In particular, certain tenets of the criticized ideological systems go unchallenged and even almost tacitly confirmed as true. I guess you could argue that they were meant to be more subtly folded into the rest of the overarching criticism, but since other things are directly addressed just fine, I find it a bit odd.

Also, maybe I'm just oversensitive about F/F relationships rarely being afforded the same complexity as M/M or F/M ones, but the distinct handling of Kyr and Mags's identities and relationships does rub me the wrong way. Mags and Avi's relationship is consistently one of the more plot-relevant (and a bit fucked up for various reasons), and despite not being perspective characters, they each get in some brief thoughtful dialogue on their identities and realizations thereof. Kyr, on the other hand, gets some repressed subtext and

a single date with a relatively minor, extremely underdeveloped character in a different timeline

, and her introspection about her sexuality is pretty much limited to that aforementioned repression/dismissal and fleeting surprise, which comes across as especially odd given the worldview she starts out with.

Kyr's bigotry in general felt a bit... diluted, as if the author wanted to write a deradicalization arc but didn't want to start her off as so obscenely awful that many wouldn't be interested in reading -- the point gets through, just judging from how many reviews are complaining about how unlikable she was (that is the point!), but to me it felt like a pulled punch. It's not helped by how quickly her development occurs, either, with some token resistance and lingering vestiges afterward not quite enough to make it feel truly realistic or cathartic.

Fine as a story, but falls short in its scaffolding social commentary, which is neither especially unique in concept nor exceptionally powerful in execution. Might have been better marketed as YA, though I feel some further nuance than is provided would still be expected there.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Misogyny, Sexism, Violence, Xenophobia, Murder, Gaslighting, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Homophobia, Pedophilia, Racism, Sexual assault, Suicide, Torture, Transphobia, and Grief

Minor: Animal death, Rape, Slavery, Trafficking, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

Eugenics.