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3.93 AVERAGE
3.93 AVERAGE
adventurous
funny
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
I want the drugs this guy uses
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Cozy and existential, weird, dystopian sci fi.
Rachel found Borne attached to the giant, murderous, flying bear that terrorises the city. Borne was just salvage at first: dark purple like a half-closed stranded sea anemone. But then Borne starts to change and learn.
Rachel lives with Wick, her partner and lover, a drug dealer, a complicated relationship. They are both self-sufficient and self-contained, extremely paranoid due to their circumstances.
They are living in the end times with toxic air, polluted water, morphed animals. Scavengers, killers, monsters who want to destroy everything.
I loved the relationship building in this book. The developing, the trusting, the breaking down.
Borne forces Rachel to question nature v nurture and how she perceives the world and words. Borne is naive in contrast to y hyper-awareness and fear.
VanderMeer is extremely clever and witty with his dialogue.
<b>”What rhymes with crappy?” Borne would ask.
“Happy?”
“No, shitty.”
“No, that word doesn’t rhyme with crappy.”
“But it rhymes with city, and that rhymes with happy.”
“None of that is true.”
“True rhymes with fact.”
“In a way, I guess.”
“Fact rhymes with city and happy.”
“No, in this case city and happy put together rhyme with opinion.”
“You don’t share my opinion?”
“Borne…” His asymmetrical rhymes were like bad puns in three dimensions—tiring, often scatological, or, as he put it “only natural, which rhymes with cultural”—but always coming to a point.
</b>
This mirrors a parent child relationship which is made even more startling when you start learning more and more about Borne.
Like his other works, this touches on climate change and catastrophe. On hiding behind corporations and shunting blame or responsibility to the next generation.
<b>Worse, when these events recur, at an ever greater magnitude, in a cascade of what you have never seen before and do not know how to classify. Troubling because each time you acclimate, you move on, and, if this continues, there is a mundane grandeur to the scale that renders certain events beyond rebuke or judgment, horror or wonder, or even the grasp of history.</b>
Overall, a lot easier to follow than his Southern Reach series, but keeping that unique weirdness and deep thoughtfulness.
Rachel found Borne attached to the giant, murderous, flying bear that terrorises the city. Borne was just salvage at first: dark purple like a half-closed stranded sea anemone. But then Borne starts to change and learn.
Rachel lives with Wick, her partner and lover, a drug dealer, a complicated relationship. They are both self-sufficient and self-contained, extremely paranoid due to their circumstances.
They are living in the end times with toxic air, polluted water, morphed animals. Scavengers, killers, monsters who want to destroy everything.
I loved the relationship building in this book. The developing, the trusting, the breaking down.
Borne forces Rachel to question nature v nurture and how she perceives the world and words. Borne is naive in contrast to y hyper-awareness and fear.
VanderMeer is extremely clever and witty with his dialogue.
<b>”What rhymes with crappy?” Borne would ask.
“Happy?”
“No, shitty.”
“No, that word doesn’t rhyme with crappy.”
“But it rhymes with city, and that rhymes with happy.”
“None of that is true.”
“True rhymes with fact.”
“In a way, I guess.”
“Fact rhymes with city and happy.”
“No, in this case city and happy put together rhyme with opinion.”
“You don’t share my opinion?”
“Borne…” His asymmetrical rhymes were like bad puns in three dimensions—tiring, often scatological, or, as he put it “only natural, which rhymes with cultural”—but always coming to a point.
</b>
This mirrors a parent child relationship which is made even more startling when you start learning more and more about Borne.
Like his other works, this touches on climate change and catastrophe. On hiding behind corporations and shunting blame or responsibility to the next generation.
<b>Worse, when these events recur, at an ever greater magnitude, in a cascade of what you have never seen before and do not know how to classify. Troubling because each time you acclimate, you move on, and, if this continues, there is a mundane grandeur to the scale that renders certain events beyond rebuke or judgment, horror or wonder, or even the grasp of history.</b>
Overall, a lot easier to follow than his Southern Reach series, but keeping that unique weirdness and deep thoughtfulness.
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Gaaah. I don't even know how to feel at the end of all this.
I want to like this book, very much. It's charming, in a disgusting, terrifying, bizarre kind of way, with the innocent killers and the gruesome worms and the word play and the landscape that is so incredibly tangible you can almost taste the dust and feel the wind sweeping through the streets.
Seriously, the world that has been created here is fascinating and I crave more information about the inner workings.
But the pacing is atrocious and the characters, while likable after a while, are kept at a considerable distance. I just feel baffled and uncertain at the end of it, like nothing was ever told or explained. The narration style is so isolated and lonely and hard to get into.
If you can stick it out for like, 200 pages, you'll get into some nicely rewarding text, but the first 200 pages are almost dreary, where the only curiosity is "What nasty thing will we uncover next?" Slow burn tales can be delightful, but I feel like every tidbit of intrigue and discovery was held tantalizingly out of reach by an author who didn't want to give up any secrets whatsoever. Many readers are likely to get tired of reaching for those morsels and give up. The ending is beautiful, but the bulk leading up to it is disjointed.
As dystopians go, I'm very, very torn. I feel like I might have gotten more out of this if I were a parent, with the conflicts of raising someone and seeing them grow and change as they learn and become human.
If I had to guess, I bet Station Eleven fans would enjoy this one. If they can deal with a giant flying bear and a whole lot of tentacles, of course.
(It took me until about page 273 of 323 to realize that Mord is a [intentional?] reference to Mor'du, the Scottish bear, but Google is only giving me Disney references so it's hard to tell what the actual legend is.)
(Furthermore, I realize this isn't the case AT ALL, but Borne very much reminded me of Koro Sensei from Assassination Classroom, which made him even more likable.)
(Further furthermore, I like Wick's mad scientist gray hair wisping around his face. It's super cute.)
I want to like this book, very much. It's charming, in a disgusting, terrifying, bizarre kind of way, with the innocent killers and the gruesome worms and the word play and the landscape that is so incredibly tangible you can almost taste the dust and feel the wind sweeping through the streets.
Seriously, the world that has been created here is fascinating and I crave more information about the inner workings.
But the pacing is atrocious and the characters, while likable after a while, are kept at a considerable distance. I just feel baffled and uncertain at the end of it, like nothing was ever told or explained. The narration style is so isolated and lonely and hard to get into.
If you can stick it out for like, 200 pages, you'll get into some nicely rewarding text, but the first 200 pages are almost dreary, where the only curiosity is "What nasty thing will we uncover next?" Slow burn tales can be delightful, but I feel like every tidbit of intrigue and discovery was held tantalizingly out of reach by an author who didn't want to give up any secrets whatsoever. Many readers are likely to get tired of reaching for those morsels and give up. The ending is beautiful, but the bulk leading up to it is disjointed.
As dystopians go, I'm very, very torn. I feel like I might have gotten more out of this if I were a parent, with the conflicts of raising someone and seeing them grow and change as they learn and become human.
If I had to guess, I bet Station Eleven fans would enjoy this one. If they can deal with a giant flying bear and a whole lot of tentacles, of course.
(It took me until about page 273 of 323 to realize that Mord is a [intentional?] reference to Mor'du, the Scottish bear, but Google is only giving me Disney references so it's hard to tell what the actual legend is.)
(Furthermore, I realize this isn't the case AT ALL, but Borne very much reminded me of Koro Sensei from Assassination Classroom, which made him even more likable.)
(Further furthermore, I like Wick's mad scientist gray hair wisping around his face. It's super cute.)
3,5 stars.
Jeff VanderMeer endings are worth all the wondering and confusion of his books.
Jeff VanderMeer endings are worth all the wondering and confusion of his books.
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
tense
slow-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:
Complicated
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Reading about this book, I had the impression it was a New Weird exploration of questions about what it means to be a parent in unfolding apocalypse. Really, it's largely a slow-burn plot-focused survival story where any explorations of parenting, relationships and alterity mainly exists to serve the plot. I don't walk away from this book with anything more complex that sometimes we raise monsters and yet we still love them.