Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

The Power by Naomi Alderman

3 reviews

scruffie's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.0

I really enjoyed reading this one, though the entire book is nightmare material (content warnings not to be taken lightly). Great pace, very tense, and adventurous. It draws attention to many social discrepancies and is full of female viewpoints and characters, which, in and of itself, felt refreshing.

That being said, I didn't appreciate the book's binary view on gender, the conflation of sex and gender, and the complete disregard for the multitude of gender identities; in this book "male" equals "man", "female" equals "woman", and that's all there is to it. Also, I had hoped that the book will have a more positive stance towards society; I've had my fill of the whoever-has-the-bigger-stick-must-oppress-whoever-has-the-smaller-stick point of view. That's alright though, I think the author delivered the narrative they chose pretty successfully.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Medical trauma, War, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Animal death, Blood, Body shaming, Drug use, Physical abuse, Body horror, Bullying, Child death, Cursing, Child abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, Murder, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Police brutality

Minor: Infidelity, Pregnancy, Vomit, Excrement, and Trafficking

takarakei's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

5.0

Re-read (first read was in 2018). This book holds up to the 5 stars I gave it originally. This time I listened to the audiobook, which is FABULOUSLY narrated - seriously I went and looked up every book Adjoa Andoh has narrated and was pleased to find there are lots.

Dystopian, sci-fi, very dark - please go into it checking all content warnings. Basically take all the horrible things that we humans have done and put them in one book, but with a gender role reversal. Then as you read this, think about all these horrible things that are happening, what those with the power do to those without, remember that these are all things that HAVE been done throughout history to marginalized people in THIS world. The one that we live in. The insane thing is that I almost hesitate to call this sci-fi because it's basically our real history. Yeah, it's disturbing.

I thought about this book long after I read it the first time, and will continue to do so probably forever.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Violence, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Death, and Murder

Moderate: Sexism, Blood, Animal death, Gore, Misogyny, Drug use, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, Trafficking, Animal cruelty, and Child abuse

A girl is SA/raped by her foster parent, an adult man. This has been happening repeatedly while living with her foster parents. There is other rape/SA also to a man by a woman because of the role reversal of power.

mikki_9's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Child abuse, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Miscarriage, Murder, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, War, and Death of parent

Moderate: Abandonment, Ableism, Bullying, Confinement, and Mental illness

Minor: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Chronic illness, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Gun violence, Mass/school shootings, Pregnancy, Racism, and Transphobia