Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer

3 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

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

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