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ariannadanyel's review against another edition
challenging
dark
fast-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death
Moderate: Infidelity
Minor: Sexism
horrorandscience's review
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
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
4.0
I was very, very hesitant to start this book because I have an aversion to any kind of harm to animals. I am (mostly) glad that I decided to read it anyway. Content warnings are listed at the bottom for those interested in the outcome.
Don’t get me wrong, it was rough. As a scientist myself, it’s always hard to deal with animal testing; you get attached very quickly, you care too much, and you feel tremendous guilt. I think, even though the entire story had me on edge, that gave me more of an emotional attachment to this novella.
It is the near future, and Dr. Sean Kell-Luddon is a scientist currently studying behavior in wolves. She has the chance to use a special interface to become “in-kind” with her wolf, Kate. This means that Sean can see, hear, smell, and fear whatever Kate does. The experiment is to determine why these wolves have survived when many other packs have died off.
There are a lot of ethical questions in this novella, and I think that adds to the general uneasiness to the read. It is only 100 or so pages, yet I took my time reading it, because I had so many thoughts I just had to write down.
Thank you to NetGalley and Tordotcom for the chance to read this advanced review copy.
CW for medical setting, animal cruelty, animal death, blood, gore, racism, sexism, vomit, and infidelity
Don’t get me wrong, it was rough. As a scientist myself, it’s always hard to deal with animal testing; you get attached very quickly, you care too much, and you feel tremendous guilt. I think, even though the entire story had me on edge, that gave me more of an emotional attachment to this novella.
It is the near future, and Dr. Sean Kell-Luddon is a scientist currently studying behavior in wolves. She has the chance to use a special interface to become “in-kind” with her wolf, Kate. This means that Sean can see, hear, smell, and fear whatever Kate does. The experiment is to determine why these wolves have survived when many other packs have died off.
There are a lot of ethical questions in this novella, and I think that adds to the general uneasiness to the read. It is only 100 or so pages, yet I took my time reading it, because I had so many thoughts I just had to write down.
Thank you to NetGalley and Tordotcom for the chance to read this advanced review copy.
CW for medical setting, animal cruelty, animal death, blood, gore, racism, sexism, vomit, and infidelity
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Medical content
Moderate: Gore and Blood
Minor: Infidelity, Racism, and Sexism
laurareads87's review against another edition
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Feed Them Silence follows Sean, a neuroscientist, and her team’s experiment in human/non-human interfacing which allows Sean to neurally link with a wolf, experiencing the wolf’s senses, emotions, connections, and pain. As Sean’s connection with “her” wolf intensifies, detachment from her “subject” becomes less and less possible all while other aspects of Sean’s life unravel.
There is a lot I liked about this. I’d not read Mandelo before but I found this novella well-written and will definitely look into more of their work. Sean is a well developed character — far from likeable, as other reviewers have noted, but she’s hardly intended to be. Mandelo has packed a lot into a very short number of pages as well — while the focus is Sean’s experience, there are also considerations of the ethics of research involving animals, climate grief, the pressures of academic life (including for women in particular), and an intense exploration of what happens when human and non-human others are treated as objects.
A few things didn’t work for me. The focus on Sean as a protagonist was so strong that every other character felt under-developed as a result — the reader learns very very little about the other members of the research team, even though Sean spends most of her time with them, and much of what we learn about Sean’s wife Riya are the ways that Riya responds to Sean treating her like garbage. I also found, for all the emphasis on cross-species understanding, that this book was extraordinarily anthropocentric. While the human characters displayed a range of changing amounts and types of concern for the welfare of the wolves being exploited for the study, the focus is so consistently on the utility (or not) of the study and on Sean’s need to feel okay about the work that she was doing that I feel like some of the potential for this book to be thought-provoking was lost.
Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan-Tor/Forge / Tordotcom for providing an ARC in exchange for this review.
There is a lot I liked about this. I’d not read Mandelo before but I found this novella well-written and will definitely look into more of their work. Sean is a well developed character — far from likeable, as other reviewers have noted, but she’s hardly intended to be. Mandelo has packed a lot into a very short number of pages as well — while the focus is Sean’s experience, there are also considerations of the ethics of research involving animals, climate grief, the pressures of academic life (including for women in particular), and an intense exploration of what happens when human and non-human others are treated as objects.
A few things didn’t work for me. The focus on Sean as a protagonist was so strong that every other character felt under-developed as a result — the reader learns very very little about the other members of the research team, even though Sean spends most of her time with them, and much of what we learn about Sean’s wife Riya are the ways that Riya responds to Sean treating her like garbage. I also found, for all the emphasis on cross-species understanding, that this book was extraordinarily anthropocentric. While the human characters displayed a range of changing amounts and types of concern for the welfare of the wolves being exploited for the study, the focus is so consistently on the utility (or not) of the study and on Sean’s need to feel okay about the work that she was doing that I feel like some of the potential for this book to be thought-provoking was lost.
Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan-Tor/Forge / Tordotcom for providing an ARC in exchange for this review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Medical content
Minor: Racism and Sexism
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