Reviews with content warning for Torture - Some Desperate Glory

Reviews tagging 'Torture'

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

23 reviews

the_lesbrarian's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced

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

5.0

Who gets to decide what the greater good is? And what happens when we disagree over what that means?

Some Desperate Glory is a beautiful, unexpected story about what it means to be human in this universe. Following violence and love through interweaving threads of space and time, Some Desperate Glory asks the question “what’s worth fighting for” through the eyes of a 17 year old child soldier in a militant space colony set to avenge a murdered Earth. The world created in this novel is brutal, and the characters are, at times, shockingly cruel, though their capacity for gentleness and reflection often reveals itself at surprising moments. While reading this book, I laughed out loud in surprise, joy, and painful recognition. Tesh identifies her work as “social science fiction,” and I couldn’t agree more.

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fjalar's review

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful sad tense fast-paced

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

4.75

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callmekt's review

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adventurous dark medium-paced

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

[EDIT] THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS. The spoiler tags aren't working for me on mobile. Please read this review at your own risk.

Spoilering my review because I want to talk about later plot developments.

<Spoiler> Overall, I liked the first half over the second. Kyr's slow realizations were much more interesting than the timey-whimey shenanigans of the second half.

<Spoiler>I am not big into stories where time travel is a major plot development. I think things start to go off the rails in Part 3 when Kyr gets to the Wisdom node on Chrysothemis and both Magnus and Avi conveniently show up. Without prior understanding of a Wisdom node's security measures, it felt a little farcicle.

<Spoiler>If Part 4 had been a longer segment, I would have DNF'd right there, but Tesh seemed to understand that would have been a stopping point for a lot of readers and brought back the main timeline to keep us going. I was worried that the last part would be another jump away from the original timeline of the first half, but it didn't. Thankfully.

<Spoiler>Part 5 had the most adventure and action. That made it fun and engaging, though I would have liked another moment between Kyr and Lisabel. I think they make a cute couple.

This book talks about sexual subjugation of women, and I was a little worried we would see a graphic rape scene. We did not. I am grateful that this is a book where sexual assault is a central talking point without being graphically depicted.

For readers like me who want to know exactly how a book handles/talks about sexual assault, here is a spoiled list of the mentions:

<Spoiler>

Serious talk of Ursula, Kyr's sister, getting raped by Aulus Jole. This includes Kyr's thoughts going from "Jole hurt my sister" to "Jole raped my sister." This is brought up a lot.
Allusions to the women assigned to Nursery at Gaea Station being raped regularly, and this rape bears children. Not mentioned as often as the first point but still often.
One of Kyr's friends, newly assigned to Nursery, is led away by a superior officer in front of Kyr, who does not try to stop it.
Jole kisses Kyr without consent. He also touches her hand and arm and shoulder. Clothes are on throughout the exchange and Kyr gets herself out of it.
A single mention of Kyr realizing female fetuses are aborted so the majority of births on the station are male. This is only ever mentioned explicitly once.

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hailstorm3812's review against another edition

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adventurous dark hopeful fast-paced

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

4.5

This is a tough read, but so worth it. It is both incredibly dark and incredibly hopeful. Kyr's arc is so well done and the side characters are so interesting. It makes so many interesting points. I think it straddles the line of YA and adult in an odd way sometimes, most evidently in the very ending which I have mixed feelings on. Overall I really did love it and highly recommend.

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lizgriffinwords's review against another edition

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adventurous dark 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

3.75

Hard to review this one because of the triggering nature of some of the content, but still excellently done. If you like The Expanse & Mass Effect & multiverse concepts and you can stomach a hellish future for women, give this a read.

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