Reviews tagging 'Blood'

Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer

12 reviews

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

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

lynxpardinus's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective tense

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Physical abuse, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Gun violence, Suicide, Child abuse, Death, Stalking, and Torture

Moderate: Toxic friendship, Blood, Child death, Cursing, Death of parent, Dementia, Medical content, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Confinement, Religious bigotry, Body shaming, Infidelity, and Mass/school shootings

Minor: Police brutality, Ableism, Drug abuse, Fatphobia, and War

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

seasidefaye13's review against another edition

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Minor: Blood

mandkips's review

challenging dark reflective medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Stalking, Murder, and Blood

Moderate: Violence and Gore

Minor: Animal death and Infidelity

kaylatee's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

1.5

So excruciatingly slow with a narrator that is unreliable and unpleasant. The whole shebang feels very pointless by the end.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Gore, Gun violence, and Murder

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Fire/Fire injury, Mental illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Physical abuse

Minor: Animal death

- Lots of gun violence - Main character shares anecdotes from her childhood of her emotionally and physically abusive grandfather and mother who suffered bouts of psychosis. Not graphic, but still upsetting - Taxidermy is a main subject

2 taxidermy statues also get destroyed by humans

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A fire in a warehouse destroys a bunch of taxidermy statues. Narrator describes this in fair detail

caprivoyant's review against another edition

slow-paced

1.5

Audiobook review:

It's hard for me to tell if this is a criticism for the book itself or just for the audio version, but this book was just "ok" for me. I read it with my honey through a number of car trips, and it never really got thrilling? I think maybe if I wasn't expecting a thriller, I could have gotten more into the book...? But, then again, maybe not. The narrator of this book sounded bored. And it made me bored. So maybe I wouldn't have liked it at all no matter what. 😐

Is this the experience with the physical book? I have no idea. I think I would have added emotion to the text version of this book if I were reading the pages instead of listening to a voice actor's interpretations of this one. But maybe the main character is just flat anyway? I HAVE NO IDEA!

END OF REVIEW  🐦 


⚠ Some of the Content Warnings for this book, I don't really know how to put in the section below. So I'll start here and do my best in that section down there. Taxidermy! Dead animals (they're not being killed in the book, they're just dead), fatphobia, eco-terrorism, death of parents (mentioned), child abuse, murder (some in self-defense), infidelity, medical content, fighting/gore-ish, and poking eyes out/maiming of taxidermied things?!??! What is the CW for that?!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Fatphobia, Blood, Medical content, Stalking, and Murder

Minor: Animal death, Death of parent, and Child abuse

v171's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.0

Rambling, nonsensical, and pointless. I have so much I could say about why I think this was a failure of a story, but it's not worth the effort. Better than Dead Astronauts though! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Alcohol, Blood, Cursing, Death, Gun violence, Murder, Stalking, Toxic relationship, and Violence

kelseyland's review against another edition

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

4.5

An eco-thriller set in the near future, in which a security consultant turns detective to unravel the mystery left for her by a radical environmental activist. It's an unsettling, timely, and captivating book in which VanderMeer examines (among other things) the consequences of human action and apathy on the natural world.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Child abuse, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Violence and Gore

Minor: Child death and Death of parent