Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Day Zero by C. Robert Cargill

9 reviews

alexkendall's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful sad tense fast-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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Genocide, Gore, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Blood, Child death, and Gun violence

assassinsweettea's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, War, Gun violence, Grief, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, and Violence

Moderate: Slavery

maidinnah's review

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

As thrilling and action-packed as its sequel, with more heart and fluff to spare. While Sea of Rust was more nihilistic and desolate, Day Zero finds pockets of hope in the inevitable apocalypse and reminds us that our greatest power comes from our wired need for love and connection.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Gun violence, Violence, Death of parent, Death, and Murder

Moderate: Child death and Grief

greywolfheir's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Violence, War, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Gun violence, and Murder

Moderate: Child death

joyfulfoodie's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful tense fast-paced

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

5.0

This book is very well executed. It gets emotional. You are highly invested in these characters. I outright cried multiple times.
There is one thing that bothers me about the ending, so I’ll spoiler cut.

The story ends with Pounce, the nanny bot, taking up a vigil to watch over his kid’s new settlement. Problem is they don’t address a power source. Earlier in the book they do a fabulous job of addressing charging issues, but there is never any hint that they can charge themselves outside with solar or anything. And then we’re supposed to accept a circle of nanny bots sitting out to watch over this camp indefinitely with no grid to support them? Questionable and sloppy. It wouldn’t have taken much to have them sitting in a circle around a solar generator instead of just “in a sewing circle” to tighten that up.

 

There are also a couple of places where you almost get the sense that a character is sacrificed for the sake of a main character’s growth… kind of like the “fridging” a character trope you see in tv sometimes. Since there is a lot of violence in this apocalyptic robot war book it doesn’t really hit you like that in the moment, but it kind of makes you wonder looking back at the end. 

Still. It reeled me in and held me, I was emotionally invested, and thought about it a lot between time listening to the audiobook (which is fabulously executed, superb voice actor.) Five stars. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Gun violence, Violence, Death of parent, Death, Genocide, and War

Moderate: Car accident, Classism, Alcoholism, and Alcohol

coolshades's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Death of parent, and Child death

midwestchickadee's review against another edition

adventurous dark inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Gun violence, and Murder

Moderate: Violence and War

qwerty88's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark hopeful tense fast-paced

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

3.5

very fast paced, feels like a blockbuster summer movie in terms of the pacing. lots of violence, but most is robot on robot 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Cursing, Death, and Death of parent

Moderate: Car accident, Gore, Grief, and Gun violence

Minor: Alcoholism, Confinement, and Child death

this is about the end of the world, it is not peaceful

lazlonger's review

adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Sea of Rust was something really really special and while Day Zero is good it isn't nearly as good. It follows a lot of Terminator type tropes and I often felt like Skynet was a character. Also just after reading Klara and the Sun, this was a lesser exposition of the AI in flux. All in all it seems this book fell in a time where others eclipse it some, but I love this universe and read it, enjoyed it, and look forward to much much more! Watching this author for sure. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent