Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

BioShock: Rapture by John Shirley

4 reviews

cooperlentz's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad tense 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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Classism, Sexual assault, Violence, Kidnapping, Medical content, Pandemic/Epidemic, Religious bigotry, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Gun violence, Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Suicide, Torture, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Medical trauma, Body horror, Body shaming, Child death, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Grief, Blood, Confinement, Cursing, and Drug use

Moderate: Racism, Slavery, and Pregnancy

Minor: Pedophilia, Vomit, and Trafficking

rubi_blue6's review

dark emotional tense slow-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

Welcome to Rapture.

A painfully dark, eloquent prequel to one of the best games ever made, the author masterfully references and explains in game lore without compromising on narrative prowess. 

I really loved exploring Rapture through Bill's eyes, a character who does feature in the games first installment (in some form or another) 

Supporting media for games is tricky, as they remove the interactivity, but I was consistantly impressed with how much the novel added to my love of the game.

Would you kindly play Bioshock again?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Gore

Moderate: Torture, Suicide, Gun violence, Classism, War, Addiction, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Child abuse

Minor: Sexual violence

ficteon's review

adventurous challenging dark reflective sad 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

5.0

This was absolutely amazing in my opinion. After playing the first game and while playing the second I started reading this prequel. It tells the story of the fall of a city. It tells a story of humans secluded from the world in what was supposed to be capitalistic utopia, but instead because of the greed and selfishness found in capitalism it becomes a horrible dystopia. 

I think this book is one big psychological study of what tf went wrong in there and I adored it. 

It's not like the game action packed or plot twisty (like many reviewers don't seem to like) but that wasn't the point of this prequel! At least not in my opinion. This book is a slow explanation into how humans can destroy each other. I'd say it's target audience is the people who already know the plot twists and turns, so why would the book try the same? However even if you haven't played the game I'd actually recomend it if you love psychological fiction stories, as then you'd love this one so much. I learned so much about the world and made connections while playing the second game with the book which made my reading experience so much better too. So.. still recommend you playing the game as it is amazing. 

This book though took all the cruelness and gore from the game and made it worse by explaining word for word absolutely everything about the gore. In the game it was most of the time implied what happend.. the book actually told you what happened in all the grossness. 
So.. if you're not good on people being disfigured in many ways.. don't read..


I came to the conclusion what is wrong with capitalism while reading this book. People always say communism doesn't work (and sure it doesn't) but it does not not work because of it's corner stone feature which would be sharing and caring. It doesn't work because of greed. However Capitalisms cornerstone is greed. It's money it's selfishness. It doesn't work either because of it, and in this book you see where an Capitalistic utopia could lead, which is really scary. As funny thing .. communism in Rapture could've theoretically worked as it's a small community. Communism works in smaller groups. 

However most of the characters are not very moral so Rapture was doomed from the start. 

We got Ryan. The slavery appologist hypocrite who from the start becomes who he hates most, however doesn't see it for some reason. 

We got Tannenbaum. An evil scientist who created an army of undead girls. 

We got Fontain. A liar and will kill you no matter who you are for his benefit. He would kill his own mother to cover his tracks. 

We got Cohen, Rapist, murderer and theater kid. 

And so many more! 

So beware kids. Only invite people without a criminal record in your utopian city, or else they may cause some problems!

Little warning though. It's a book that is set in 1940 - 1960.. So we know how it was back then if you're not straight and white. But it isn't major in the book I'd say and ?SPOILER?

a black person does kinda safe the day in the end. So that's that. But.. offensive language warning.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Addiction, Classism, Confinement, Gore, Drug abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Slavery, Violence, War, Gun violence, Transphobia, Mass/school shootings, Police brutality, Alcohol, Blood, Child abuse, Death, Body horror, and Mental illness

Minor: Torture, Suicide, Trafficking, Child death, and Racial slurs

cranedphoenix's review against another edition

dark reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

This is my second time reading this and it's decent enough, it's a good back story to everything rapture but for me I get bored with it easily, it's long and slow and the characters aren't loveable so it can be a hard read
Love BioShock as a whole though

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Body horror, Death, War, Violence, Gun violence, Murder, and Grief

Moderate: Racial slurs, Ableism, Sexism, Xenophobia, Racism, Sexual violence, Drug abuse, Confinement, and Drug use