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panickedhonking's review against another edition
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Medical content, Physical abuse, Medical trauma, Torture, and Body horror
queenkath32's review against another edition
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
3.75
Moderate: Blood, Body horror, Death, Murder, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Chronic illness, and Grief
allcapspyrex's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Graphic: Body horror and Gore
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail
minna_chan's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Characters were kind of flat to me at times, and story became predictive. There’s no real major character development for any of the characters.
(Spoiler alert, read with caution).
Main girl has to save the world (or universe, really) because it’s about to be destroyed by a monstrous debacle but doesn’t really change throughout the story. I mean, yeah, she might’ve accepted that she might not return to her old lifestyle but is otherwise the exact same person as she was at the beginning, despite having been dead and resurrected…twice.
But it was a nice read overall. 3/5.
Moderate: Murder, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, and Violence
akfowly's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- 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
2.75
In the end I think I might have enjoyed the book? I have some quibbles about Kira's fate. It felt almost a little like it leaned too hard into a few tropes about women, but it was still unexpected and creative. I read this as part of a christmas present for my mom, so it wasn't my first choice of a book, and if it hadn't been for that I probably would have stopped reading before part 1 ended. For an almost 900 page book, it lacks heavily in character development.
Also, I don't care for the world-building info-dump I discovered at the end of the book when I went back to check a couple things for this review -- if you want to tell me that a pepper was cultivated by someone before they won a 'tri-solar hot pepper bash', incorporate it in the text.
Important: I don't care for the way Paolini portrayed the non-white characters and women in this book, to be completely honest. There were definitely moments where Kira's perspective felt uncomfortable to read, and pulled me out of the flow as I was reminded that a man wrote her, especially as she was perceiving herself and some of the male characters. Also when she had 'emotions' she felt less believable/real than the (2/3 male-coded) maybe more robot-than-human ship minds. It felt a little like she spent the entire book (which covers maybe up to a couple years of time? Hard to follow the timeline between her dissociating and the cryo gaps, tbh) dissociating from shock, and viewing the world through a looking glass.
In general the romance aspects of this book felt clunky and unrealistic/lacked emotion**, and even as an avid romance reader, I could have done without it. On the note of Hwa Jung, I did not care for her portrayal - it felt at times like a series of microaggressions rather than a whole person. Kira's own heritage is only alluded to via her last name, so it felt a little bit checkboxy, i.e. they are not white because that's what's 'in' vs. creating full and complete intentional characters. Also felt pretty uncomfortable about the other two romances - Hwa Jung and Sparrow felt like another 'diversity' checkbox, and the Dr. who was being antagonized by the gal and then suddenly they were having sex and then engaged to be married felt...bizarre to say the least.
My other big quibble is that a huge twist in the book relies really heavily on unreliable narrator and hinges pretty heavily on something that in my opinion is actually a moment where he figured it out at the end and forgot to make sure the beginning still fit the timing right. Without giving spoilers, it has to do with the timing of Kira's first and subsequent contact experiences and the origin of something that I don't think quite fits with the explanation at the end.
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Death, Murder, Gun violence, War, Torture, and Blood
Moderate: Body horror
Minor: Colonisation, Sexual content, Dysphoria, and Racism
lucasgillon's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Moderate: War and Violence
Minor: Racism, Injury/Injury detail, and Genocide
sometimes_samantha_reads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Graphic: Medical content, Torture, War, Body horror, Death, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, and Violence
darkefyres's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Body horror, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Blood, Grief, and Violence
Moderate: Cursing, Vomit, War, and Sexual content
Minor: Medical content
bookishchef's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Xenophobia, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, War, Cursing, Body horror, Death, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Medical content, Pregnancy, and Infertility
pineapplesurvivor's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.5
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Death, Grief, Medical content, War, Gore, and Medical trauma
Moderate: Confinement and Forced institutionalization