Reviews tagging 'Drug abuse'

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

26 reviews

gabefish's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious 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

4.5

At first a bit difficult to get into as all sci-fi books can be, lots of set up! And. A bit dry because well the main character is an AI! But, after you get settled in you notice the little details of Breq's personality, her snarkiness and pettiness. And once the twist and plot is revealed was so fun and interesting considering the world building! Very fun. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Drug abuse, Xenophobia, and Violence

scifi_rat's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Colonisation, and Death

Moderate: Murder, Xenophobia, Addiction, Blood, Drug abuse, Medical content, Slavery, Genocide, Religious bigotry, Violence, War, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Gun violence

jackie_marion's review against another edition

adventurous challenging medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Drug abuse, Blood, Xenophobia, Violence, War, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Murder

avacadosocks's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Death, Colonisation, Gun violence, and Violence

Moderate: Drug abuse and Addiction

Minor: Body horror

julesadventurezone's review against another edition

challenging mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Kept me pleasantly confused for a long time and then absolutely delivered with its explanations.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Gun violence, Xenophobia, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Colonisation

Moderate: Blood, Religious bigotry, Medical content, Drug abuse, Death, Addiction, Genocide, War, and Body horror

sincetheflood's review against another edition

adventurous challenging mysterious 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Colonisation, and Gun violence

Moderate: Addiction, Drug abuse, and Genocide

Minor: Vomit, Body horror, and Grief

violerwolf's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.75

I absolutely adored this story. Truly gripping in how it navigates the politics of the military industrial complex through both the characters within and the literal instrument of that complex: the ancillaries. One Esk is a fascinating character to follow and I love how we split between these two storylines, One Esk’s current mission with Seiverdan and One Esk’s past on Ors. The way the memory weaves together with the present day, highlighting the themes and dynamics in both, really made the story feel in conversation with itself. I do think the ending is a bit anticlimactic, but I often find that books I really love have disappointing endings. Definitely give this a read still though! I’m super excited to start the sequels.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Classism, Grief, Kidnapping, Xenophobia, Confinement, Genocide, War, Colonisation, Murder, Violence, Death, Drug abuse, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Medical content and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Misogyny, Blood, Child death, Cursing, Alcohol, Rape, Sexism, Sexual violence, and Suicide

This whole book is about imperialism and colonialism and all of the horror that comes with that. The writing isn’t super vivid for a lot of these, but the book doesn’t shy away from discussing these topics. I’d like to say another TW for loss of control/bodily autonomy.

haberkat's review against another edition

challenging mysterious 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

4.0

Struggled with the first third of this book primarily because I read it 10 pages at a time over Christmas, but once it gets going, it really gets going. 

I could have used a little more explanation about what the fuck everything in the world building meant, but also I hate when authors treat you like you're not smart enough to work it out. Go figure. 

Otherwise really gripping examinations of empire and colonialism, and what would happen if the wheel stops turning (or if the spokes had different ideas about the way the wheel should turn). 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Colonisation, Genocide, and Drug abuse

rynaissanceenby's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense 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? No

3.25

The perspectives in this book were beautifully written. The shifting perspectives were disorienting, but they seemed to be intended to be. I think it did venture into the realm of "hard to follow the story," but if you're willing to but some concentration into it, it's an intriguing story with vibrant world-building. The realities of this world are interestingly dystopic and not like anything I've read before. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, War, Xenophobia, and Slavery

Moderate: Drug abuse, Addiction, Classism, and Murder

booksthatburn's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

5.0

ANCILLARY JUSTICE is a story of slow burn revenge by a segment of a colonial empire against its leader. It deals with personhood, gendered language, and sliding scales of ethics in colonial forces. It doesn't propose to have obvious or easy answers to any of these questions, but it excels in coming at them sideways. One of the most obvious elements of this is the way the protagonist engages with gendered language. Her first language doesn't use gendered pronouns, so she defaults to "she" (or that language's equivalent) for everyone, unless she is specifically told another gender reference. At minimum, for someone like myself reading in English it creates the impression of a world filled with women, even if they're not. Her constant misgendering marks her as an outsider even to those who don't know she's an Ancillary. As a physical extension of a spaceship's AI, put into human bodies for seamless operation, the nature of her existence is the subject of many discussions about slavery, autonomy, and personhood. Each of her bodies had a history before they became part of her, and she is uninterested in anyone's attempts to kill her in order to get that person back. This seems like the kind of thing later books might explore more, but the foundations are laid for now with various debates and conversations as to exactly what kind of colonial forces are to be preferred: one where bodies are replaced with ancillaries of a ship (effectively killing them), or one where individual humans are left their own personalities and might engage in assault of various kinds against the people in their charge. Is the soldier who has already been killed better than the one who will randomly rape the populace? The answer of stopping colonization altogether has already occurred to someone, to be sure, but this is a story where changes take time, and the last body of a several-thousand-year-old ship is content to set up the pieces of her revenge slowly. 

I enjoyed this and I'm very interested in where things go from here. I like the questions raised nearly as much as I appreciate not being given trite answers. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism

Moderate: Religious bigotry, Grief, Racism, Drug abuse, Violence, Gun violence, Murder, Xenophobia, Drug use, Slavery, Colonisation, and Death

Minor: Grief, Vomit, Alcohol, Rape, and War