Reviews tagging 'Classism'

Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes

5 reviews

eed8's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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? Yes

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Mental illness, Suicide, Death, Gore, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Death of parent, Confinement, Classism, Gun violence, and Violence

heather667's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, and Mental illness

Moderate: Bullying, Classism, and Child abuse

Minor: Child death, Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, and Death of parent

bibliomania_express's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.5

Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes is a skin-crawling space horror that delves into the psychological effects of trauma, grief, survivor's guilt, corporate greed, and the unknowable. Ophelia is a psychologist, trained to treat space exploration teams for psychological conditions. 

This book has a great blend of science, alien horror, and a creepy, cold isolated setting. Ophelia is wracked with guilt, still carrying trauma from her past, and determined to help this team who absolutely don't want her help. 

There are parallels with Barnes's first book, Dead Silence - the isolated setting, the critique of corporate capitalism, the use of auditory and visual hallucinations paired with internal conflicts, the hint of romance. But this book shows that Barnes excels at what she does. I felt Ophelia's fear, paranoia, and her intense longing to help. I understood the team dynamics and what motivated each character. My skin crawled at the whole alien part of it. The worldbuilding felt full while not relying on info dumps. 

There are some thing I wish had been expanded on, particularly at the end. The epilogue ends rather abruptly, just to tie up the story, but we don't really get to see the fallout or return to some of the side characters we met at the beginning. 

I also wanted a bit more from the team. Obviously, some characters, like Ethan and Birch, are more prominent due to their roles in the story, but the action kicks off rather quickly, so there's not a lot of time to get to know each character before the plot is happening. 

Perhaps part of it is that I wanted more answers. I have so many questions about details. I suppose some are unknowable, but I wanted a little more space for the characters to breathe at the end. 

If you want a isolated space horror that features discussions of mental health, secrets from the past, dystopian worldbuilding elements, and a fight for survivial (plus literal skin-crawling), you might enjoy this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Blood, Body horror, Classism, Death, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicidal thoughts, and Violence

Moderate: Physical abuse, Confinement, and Mental illness

Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic, Murder, Child abuse, Dementia, Domestic abuse, and Emotional abuse

clairebonney's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Truly never thought I’d read a book about space and enjoy it, but here we are.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicide, Blood, Mass/school shootings, Medical content, Self harm, Child death, Death, Child abuse, Confinement, Bullying, Classism, Physical abuse, Body horror, Gore, Mental illness, Drug use, and Gaslighting

Minor: Animal death

Very brief mention of a dead dog, but it is slightly graphic and sad

ezwolf's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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

3.0

Dr Ophelia Bray is trying to make up for the past, both her own and her family's. Part of this effort is done by joining a team going to survey a planet that was known to have life. Many space travelers have suffered from their prolonged experience in space and Dr Bray is there to try and help the team minimize these effects. She is not welcomed with open arms and when one of the crew brings up her past, it makes it even harder to trust her. But the longer they are on the planet, the more it becomes apparent that something is wrong and they may not be able to escape it. 

Something I found interesting with both Ghost Station and Dead Silence do the portrayal of capitalism. I know sometimes it's nice to have an escape from reality, but I found it really intriguing to consider. In Ghost Station especially, capitalism is the source of a lot of the problems the team suffers, both before and during the story. Overall this was a fine book. It was suitably thriller-y and horror-y, the mysteries made me want answers. But we didn't get all of the answers in the end which is always something that bothers me, I am not a fan of loose ends. 

And finally, this isn't really a spoiler, but if you have trypophobia (an irrational or disproportionate feeling of discomfort or revulsion at the sight of clustered holes or bumps) I maybe wouldn't recommend this for you. The lead up to the reveal had enough instances of it that I almost stopped reading, but wound up just skipped ahead past descriptions. 

Thank you to NetGalley for making this available in exchange for an honest review!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Medical trauma, Alcohol, Body horror, Death, Blood, Violence, Child abuse, Grief, Gun violence, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Bullying, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, and Cursing

Minor: Classism, Ableism, Child death, and Dementia