Reviews tagging 'Panic attacks/disorders'

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

24 reviews

hazelwood's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

5.0

An absolute masterpiece. Octavia Butler would have loved this, I think. The characters are so so realistic! The neurodivergent representation! The gender nonconformity! The aspec representation! The dissection of power and trauma and grief! Not to mention the beautiful use of language and intensely detailed worldbuilding! I am gathering up Aster and Theo and Giselle and Ainy and Pippi and Mabel and Flick and Lune and I am forever holding them close to my heart where they can be safe. I only wish for another book, or an afterword, or something so I can know if it all turned out okay!!

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shinie's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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booksqworm's review against another edition

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

2.5

The book has potential but the writing style just did not work for me. I felt somethings were right on the nose and some things came out of no where. Has a lot of cool ideas but I think it could have been shorter. A lot of people would still love this book, but for me it was just a bit slow, cruel, and lacking excitement/plot. 

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rcsreads's review against another edition

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

3.5

The space ship is a great analogy for being trapped in slavery, you can't run away into a vacuum. The actual science of this space ship though, is insane like it has a tiny sun with floors for growing crops round it that all require drastically different environments and you can see people on other floors and they're upside down. What? If you take the ship purely as an analogy and don't think about science then this is a really interesting way to write about slavery and trauma full of diverse, queer and neurodivergent characters. The A deck ruling class are the white, heteronormative colonisers and the rest of the alphabet of decks represent the various cultures that the West enslaved and colonised. The analogy is good but the actual plot of the story gets confusing. 
 The story of Aster learning about her mother through the journals she left behind started out so well and then kind of got lost later. We just dropped it for the middle of the book and then it reappeared at the end with a lot of solutions which clearly happened off page. 
 I could see why Giselle was there to show us the effects of trauma but i have no idea why she was Aster's friend, she seemed to hate her a lot and they had nothing in common apart from living on the same floor of the massive ship. I have no idea what the Lieutenants motives were, he was a cartoon villain who just decided one day that a random child was his nemesis and he was going to mess with her for the rest of his life.
 It was very readable and I enjoyed it but this review seems to think otherwise...

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dragon_s_hoard's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0


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lim's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0


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sarkenobi's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75


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writererinm's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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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midwichtriffid's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This was a book with an interesting premise, complex characters and a world that feels bleak and hopeless. It deals with an incredible number of very dark topics and you should be very aware of any trigger warnings in this book as it does not pull any of its punches. Its hard to say that I enjoyed this book, or even that I am glad that I read it, but it was a book that needed reading. 

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nagev's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0


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