Reviews with content warning for Animal death - Small Game

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Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Small Game by Blair Braverman

109 reviews

ajdenson's review against another edition

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adventurous 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? No

5.0

My worst fears, all wrapped up in a single novel. Great writing, solid character development, the plot was pretty good.

It's nice that the book ends on a happy note, as there's a lot of traumatic stuff that happens throughout the story and I stopped being hopeful.

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tarshka's review

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sad slow-paced

Loveable characters? No

2.0

A trigger warning for animal lovers:

One of the characters kidnaps a infant deer because they wanted a pet, and then lets it die because they can't feed it. And no one seemed to care much or blame the character. I can accept hunting animals for food, it is a survival story after all, but this was just not okay to me.

The overall for me is that the story was boring and one part about an animal just made me sad and angry and stop caring if the characters survived at all.

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centrifugepolitics's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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raybudbury's review against another edition

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adventurous dark hopeful 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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kerstynleigh's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful medium-paced

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

4.5

I chose this book because I heard Blair Braverman on You’re Wrong About, and I’m so glad I did. This was a great first book for the new year. Sad and strange and hopeful.

I’m glad the ending wasn’t ambiguous— I felt like we deserved answers and as the book came to a close, I was worried that the author didn’t agree. I’m glad that wasn’t the case.

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filey's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny informative mysterious medium-paced

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

3.75

I expected this book to be closer to Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube and was initially surprised that it wasn't. As an #uglydogs fan and an occasional Survivor/Naked and Afraid enjoyer, I was excited to read Blair's (fictional) take on survival reality TV!

I burned through this novel in a single 3 hour session and thoroughly enjoyed my time with it. I don't know if Mara is meant to be a likeable protagonist, but I did like her a lot.

The ending did feel a little frustrating. I was less bothered by the missing resolution of the mystery—

I think it's heavily implied that one character's theory was spot on

—and more by the montage-like ending.

Part of me feels like it was fine, because the characters had done what they needed to do by that point, but part of me wishes I could've joined them for that last stretch of their journey as well.

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xx_coco's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

1.0

Halfway through this book I said to myself either something really interesting was going to happen or this would be a dud. Turns out it was more of a dud. The characters were all unlikable, some even entirely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, and I didn’t really care to know their fate. The concept of this story really grabbed me when I picked it up in the bookstore, but the execution fell very flat. There is no explanation as to how the survivors ended up being abandoned and the last chapter just ties everything together very nonchalantly after this group of people has experienced traumatic situations trying to survive the wilderness. Maybe it would have leant something more to this story to follow up on what happened following the survival experience. One star for the idea behind the story, though execution was lacking.

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alreads420's review

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated

3.0

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chris_reads's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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mdgoodrich's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.0

What a terrible ending…or should I say lack of an ending. I read this book in one day, was completely immersed in the plot, wondered where it was going, what really happened, would they survive, and then…nothing. A paragraph that summed up an ending with no information at all.

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