Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez

13 reviews

lakeofstars's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective slow-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

5.0

this book was hand catered for me i think

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse

Moderate: Medical content, Violence, Colonisation, and Gun violence

Minor: Sexual content, Suicide attempt, and Vomit

dlrosebyh's review

adventurous emotional slow-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

5.0

Simon Jimenez, I was not familiar with your game. 

I am not the same person pre-TVB and post-TVB. I’ve been hesitant to read The Vanished Birds because a lot of reviews said it was boring, and for me, no, it really wasn’t. And yes, it might be slow, and the chapters are long, but the pacing made perfect sense.

A lot of people compare The Vanished Birds to the Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers. And if you know me, you know I loved that series. While that series is healing and comforting, this book will tear your heart into pieces, throw it against the wall, run it over by a truck, break it even more with a hammer, and pierce it with a sword. I was expecting a simple space found family moment, but noo, Jimenez had to break my heart a million times. My heart broke for every character in this story.

This book is so rich in many ways. The characters, the plot, the world building, the atmosphere, everything. I was so shocked to find out that this is Jimenez’s DEBUT NOVEL. Only a mastermind can do such. I loved how he used scientific explanations for the progression and the effects of capitalism. Those footnotes really intrigued me.

Character wise, I have a question for you, Mr. Jimenez. Did you somehow go through my brain while writing Nia? Because why is she SO ME. The way she tries to protect everyone and is willing to give up anything just to keep everyone safe made me sob so hard. I loved how she treated Ahro, and Ahro, my baby, I will protect you with everything I have. And don’t even get me started on DanaFumiko because I cried over them so many times.

In short, please read this book. Any bad mouth against it shall fall.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, and Violence

Moderate: Medical content, Medical trauma, and Colonisation

Minor: Suicide attempt

avacadosocks's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, and Violence

Moderate: Colonisation, Medical trauma, Medical content, Gore, and Body horror

Minor: Suicide attempt and Sexual content

laurareads87's review against another edition

adventurous reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

Beautiful, devastating, and brilliant. The Vanished Birds has a lot that I love: strong character development, an interesting multi-POV structure, and a clear anti-capitalist spirit.  This does not read like a debut novel; I can't wait to read more from Simon Jimenez.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Murder, Colonisation, Torture, Child abuse, Suicide attempt, Gun violence, Grief, Medical trauma, Death, and Medical content

srm's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad 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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement

Moderate: Child abuse, Colonisation, Death, and Medical content

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, Sexual content, and Violence

vsnuffles's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

"It felt like a funeral." - William Shatner describing his voyage to space in the Guardian. I read the article today and couldn't help being reminded of this book.

This was an excellent and incredibly depressing read. I recommend reading it with caution due to just how very sad it is - it's definitely worth it but you'll want to be ready for some self-care afterwards. Do not expect a happy ending unless you like being very sad.


More in-depth:
The world-building is excellent: it's such a well thought-out future setting and the details of it are so elegantly incorporated it never feels like too much or too little. The writing was so good it was almost poetic at times, it was quite beautiful and poignant. The characters are grey and interesting. You get to see how they impact each other and the book has an excellent way of zooming out through the first few chapters, expanding the world before it settles on a more continuous story. It is a very bleak story and world, quite dystopian in a way that would feel cyberpunk if it were more focused on the digital world. Some mild spoilers for the tone of the ending/story overall:

I felt as though what hope there was for the characters was relentlessly crushed after being built up. To be fair, I think that this tone is set up well in the first chapter. But it is common for stories to pick up after tragedy and I would argue this one does not really pick up by the end in tone and the dystopian society is only more dystopian by the end.

If I had to say the story has a theme woven throughout I would have to say it is about cruelty and exploitation of humans through colonialization and capitalism. There is plenty more going on in the very well written characters, how they are shaped by their traumas in good and bad ways and being able to see how they grow based on how they react to their circumstances.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Grief and Physical abuse

Minor: Alcoholism, Eating disorder, Torture, Suicidal thoughts, Child abuse, Blood, Alcohol, Murder, Drug use, Suicide attempt, Slavery, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Grief, Gore, Emotional abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Mental illness, Medical content, Kidnapping, Deportation, Confinement, and Sexual content

planetesastraea's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

It has taken me a little while to wrap my head around this book and write a proper review of it.

From the very first pages, The Vanished Birds has been haunting. 
The book kicks off painting a world in which time goes more slowly for a group of mysterious technologically-advanced off-worlders. This perspective gives the tone for the whole novel: how small human lives can be, how fragile and fickle, a blink in the span of human history, and a speck of dust in the universe. 

As I read this book, anxiety followed me with each chapter.
Even during the most light-hearted parts of the crew's every day life, the weight of the deranging unknown that has carved its shape into their lives can't be shaken off. Something inescapable looms in the dark- something that they know to be wonderful but bound to be the key to their demise.
And this incredible build-up only works because of its even somber unfolding.

Jimenez's writing speaks to his knowledge of what it is to be human, for better and for worst.  
The length of humanity's cruelty only finds an equal in the endless hope and love that comes with finding a family, and fighting to keep it.

If I usually turn to more light-hearted reading I can't say I regret having read The Vanished Birds. It's a powerful read that has stayed with me ever since. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Colonisation, Medical content, Medical trauma, Slavery, and Torture

booksthatburn's review against another edition

It starts with a character whose limb difference is medically corrected in the first paragraph, this made me uneasy, because it allows for a bunch of ableist situations without actually having the character be physically different. I gave it a bit longer but never recovered my good will, I don't like this.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcohol and Ableism

Minor: Excrement, Body horror, Sexual content, Medical trauma, Drug abuse, and Medical content

kp_writ's review

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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

4.5

The kind of book that makes you feel like you accomplished something by finishing. And by that I mean it was dreadfully slow, and I had to work hard to keep my interest and understand the perspective shifts (that were confusing whether they happened chapter by chapter or paragraph by paragraph or towards the end even sentence by sentence). I'm very glad to have read it, and I think it's a book I may return to eventually for a reread, but it is not an easy read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Kidnapping, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Violence, Colonisation, Abandonment, Confinement, Death, Dementia, and Forced institutionalization

Moderate: Suicide attempt

astroprojection's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-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? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Colonisation, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Grief, Gun violence, Police brutality, Toxic relationship, Violence, and War

Moderate: Blood, Dementia, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Vomit

Minor: Cannibalism, Emotional abuse, Pregnancy, and Suicide attempt