Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer

19 reviews

aleyajo's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark tense fast-paced

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

If there’s one thing Jeff VanderMeer can do it’s write a strong female main character. Love the way he writes, so beautifully descriptive and thoughtful - it’s just so good! What lengths are we willing to go to? Where is our place in all this mess? At the end of the world what is truly important?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Death, Gun violence, and Violence

savshelfinger's review

adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.75

this book captures a lot of things about our society very well but the ending was a huge letdown. dammit Jeff! At least you can write women 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Gun violence, and Stalking

Moderate: Suicide and Animal cruelty

rainbowarpaint's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Pandemic/Epidemic, Mental illness, and Violence

fox_at_the_circus's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.25

This novel is more rooted in reality than the others I read by Vandermeer and arguably is scarier due to that. So much in this book is things that are happening or can easily happen in our world in a few years and that is really unsettling. This is really a crime noir book with the crime being the disctruction of the environment.
The main character in the beginning gave me the vibes of a headmistress teaching a valuable lesson. and then she slowly becomes more frantic and personal and it is harder to follow, harder to distiguish where the 'now' ends and her retelling of past stories starts. it really grips you and makes you keep reading. Her childhood trauma and family trouble work really well with the noir feeling and also explain why she would follow this path. Her slow descend into some kind of madness (or maybe just clarity of mind) is so well-written.
I always felt a bit lost and a few steps behind everyone while reading, but so was the main character often times, and it really improved the noir reading experience.
I also learned a lot about humingbirds and salamanders in this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Blood, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, and Gun violence

Moderate: Animal death, Kidnapping, Torture, Child abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Alcoholism, Emotional abuse, and Stalking

Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic

readingrampage's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Gun violence, Pandemic/Epidemic, Violence, Emotional abuse, and Physical abuse

smaravetz's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Animal death, and Murder

Moderate: Pandemic/Epidemic, Physical abuse, and Violence

teaxmillions's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious fast-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death and Violence

Moderate: Death

mgmotley's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

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

2.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Infidelity, Body horror, Death of parent, Gore, Grief, Blood, Death, Physical abuse, Violence, Child abuse, Kidnapping, Murder, Stalking, and Gun violence

crowcore's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• 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

4.5

I finished this book on a train ride from California to Washington-- a hurricane was hitting southern California and everywhere north of there was on fire, all the way up to Canada. The smoke was so thick at some points on the track that the only thing we could see out of the windows were the powerlines, and some parts of the track were too hot to go at top speed safely so we spent an extra few hours breathing in smoke.
So the book felt a little on the nose 😬

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Violence, Chronic illness, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Grief, Sexism, Stalking, Death of parent, Dementia, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Classism, Colonisation, Death, Animal death, Blood, and Misogyny

Moderate: Toxic friendship, Body shaming, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Forced institutionalization, Ableism, Deportation, Confinement, Infidelity, Medical content, Torture, and Genocide

erin_s's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.0

Certain action sequences are written with quick pacing and detail that motivate you to keep reading, but the story dragged on way too long. After a while, the climate change/environmental apocalypse themes felt cliched. Overall, the book thinks it is more clever and interesting than it actually is. By the end, I was reading it just to finish it, not because I was particularly invested in the characters or the mystery. 

Mentions of things like pandemics, political unrest, wildfires, species extinctions, etc. were probably included to make the collapse of our planet feel current or plausible, but it came off as obvious and unoriginal. Also after all the plot twists and build up, the “big reveals” weren’t that surprising or very interesting (E.g., An “ark” to outlast humans and the environments we’ve ruined, preserved animal DNA). As much as the plot is driven by Jane’s obsession with Silvina and Silvina’s mission, I never found Silvina’s character compelling.

. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Violence, and Gun violence