Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

Dune by Frank Herbert

97 reviews

theliteratewalrus2's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark reflective slow-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

5.0

This book is just so good. Even if you don't like sci fi that much I recommend you read this, if you like classics or fantasy, or just good worldbuilding in, than you'll probably like this book. Just a warning though, this book is slow, it's exposition phase alone is longer than most full-length novels.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use and Violence

Moderate: Sexual content

Minor: Addiction and Sexual assault

kaylabrotzman's review against another edition

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? No

1.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Drug abuse, and Drug use

luminifera's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-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

4.5

I find some of the characters very annoying for many different reasons, but the worst for sure is Chani. She simply

has no personality outside of being Paul's love interest

, which is kind of outrageous.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Cultural appropriation, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, and Classism

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Cursing, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Incest, Miscarriage, Pedophilia, Rape, Vomit, and Medical content

It's about the colonization of a planet, and the main character is The Chosen One. Expect violence, war, and of course plenty of misogyny - this book is from the 1960s and was written by a man. Some things are simply offensive.

dannilmp's review

adventurous mysterious reflective slow-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? No

2.75

While my rating of Dune isn't that high, I must admit that for a piece of sci-fi written so long ago this book certainly holds itself up well and through the test of time. Here we follow a complicated game of politics across multiple planets and factions while a young boy and his mother are just trying to survive Arrakis' harsh climate. 

The world building in this novel is superb, the politics, religion, factions, and planets are very well fleshed out and don't leave you wanting for much more information. If you have all of your wits about you when you start this book then I think you'll be able to keep up with the plot quite well. The touch of the passages from different sources before each chapter was a good addition as at times they revealed more than the reader yet knew, so it really got me thinking about certain characters or plot points throughout. 

On the other hand, I felt like the characters themselves were not given as much attention as the world around them, they felt very flat in comparision. At times I would have to re-read certain parts of the text to see if I had understood something and even then there were times I don't believe I had a full understanding, especially when it came to the politics plot points. So while the story and world were good, I think this book fell slightly on the delivery of those points. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Murder, and War

Moderate: Drug use

Minor: Death of parent

nozomi's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Sexism, Death of parent, Cultural appropriation, and Classism

Moderate: Addiction, Drug use, Fatphobia, Misogyny, Racism, Slavery, Violence, Xenophobia, Islamophobia, Religious bigotry, Pregnancy, and Colonisation

Minor: Child death, Homophobia, and Pedophilia

antigonecounterpart's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use and War

suneaters's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

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

3.25

This book kind of reminded me of the Star Wars prequels. Put your pitchforks down please. Interesting characters (or, well, interesting enough to analyze) and worldbuilding, but the dialogue isn’t fantastic. He clearly doesn’t know how women and kids talk so I’m sorry to his wife and children that he must have never listened to. Overall, it was an enjoyable read. Plot was nothing too exciting and really dragged at points. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Death of parent

Moderate: Drug use, Fatphobia, Grief, and Pregnancy

Minor: Child death, Rape, and Slavery

pellepanda's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Drug use, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Colonisation, War, and Classism

Moderate: Addiction and Fatphobia

ibjilln's review against another edition

adventurous dark reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia, Slavery, Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, War, and Classism

Moderate: Death, Drug use, Colonisation, and Dysphoria

thevampiremars's review

adventurous mysterious reflective tense 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

4.5

“Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic.”

I didn’t really know what to expect going in. I knew it was a science fiction classic featuring a young man called Paul on a desert planet that may or may not be called Dune, and I knew that there were big worms and something to do with spice – a rough outline, nothing more.

I think Dune can best be described as sci-fi for history buffs. It’s full of political intrigue, factions and dynasties, empire building, and so on, but also of note are the incessant spoilers courtesy of Princess Irulan. We are told who these characters are and what they will go on to do, to the extent that it sometimes feels like watching a reenactment of what happened or a dramatisation of a well-known legend rather than events unfolding in real time. At first I was thrown off by it but I adjusted and learnt to accept the writing for what it is instead of getting hung up on what I thought it would be.

Dune is, above all else, a story about expectations and adaptation. Having to adjust my own perspective in response to this curveball of a novel meant there was a neat parallel between my own reading experience and the experiences of the characters on the page having to adjust to life on Arrakis – a good avenue for sympathy and connection.

Paul, our protagonist, is entirely shaped by the expectations placed upon him.

He takes on various names and titles over the course of the story (Duke Paul Atreides, the Kwisatz Haderach, the Lisan al Gaib, Muad’Dib, Usul) and these personas seem to supersede any true sense of self he may have once had. His identity fractures and frays at the climax; not only does he flit back and forth between multiple selves, he also refers to them in the third person and assigns them different motives and personalities (“You have the word of a Duke [...] but Muad’Dib is another matter.”) I don’t know if I’d insist that Paul is plural, but his selfhood is certainly compromised and complicated by all these assumed identities.

Of course, while I’m on the topic of identity, I have to talk about gender – this book is riddled with it. I wouldn’t be the first to point out that women exist in this narrative only as they relate to men, and that they’re portrayed as intuitive, emotional, nurturing, and, above all, passive. I also wouldn’t be the first to note the queerness inherent to the Kwisatz Haderach, a boy with access to powers normally possessed only by women, who can see “both masculine and feminine pasts” – “the male who can truly become one of us.”

Paul has a drug-induced epiphany late in the novel wherein he claims women are givers and men are takers, and that he himself is “the fulcrum” who cannot give without taking nor take without giving.

That moment serves as a good demonstration of Dune’s strange synthesis of essentialism and transgressiveness. And I must say, the fulcrum quote really resonated with me as a genderqueer person.

I’ve talked about Paul, now it’s time to talk about Baron Harkonnen.

He starts off as a vague force of evil that influences the actions of others, only becoming a fully fledged character after the betrayal of Duke Leto.

Herbert could not have made it any clearer that this guy is a villain we’re supposed to loathe. Not only is he a power-hungry capitalist, he’s also an incestuous pedophile and (even worse!) he’s very fat. Yeah, the fatphobia is... not great. And that’s not the only thorny issue here. Dune is inseparable from its Orientalist manner, genocide is treated as set dressing, and eugenics (though criticised) does seem to be granted some legitimacy within the narrative. I don’t want to dwell on these problematic elements but at the same time I can’t disregard them.

Does Dune deserve four and a half stars? Probably not. Am I going to give it four and a half stars anyway? You bet. It’s not beyond criticism (far from it) but I thoroughly enjoyed it nonetheless. I’m curious to see where the story goes from here and I’ve already ordered Dune Messiah, but I won’t be reading it just yet because I have quite a backlog of unread books to work through first. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Sexism, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Ableism, Addiction, Body horror, Child abuse, Genocide, Gore, Incest, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, and War

Minor: Alcoholism, Animal death, Child death, Gun violence, Homophobia, Self harm, Excrement, Islamophobia, Cannibalism, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol