Reviews tagging 'Blood'

Pod by Laline Paull

28 reviews

mylifeincurls17's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Death, Genocide, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, and Death of parent

Minor: Ableism and Addiction

aileen_macalister's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

How would I describe this book to someone in one sentence?

Dolphin fanfic with an important underlying message and an overtone of sex and violence

SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT 

The writing itself is so good! And it's such an interesting subject to cover, how mankind's actions have affected the balance of nature, but it was so hard to get past the amount of times this book describes in detail dolphin sex

It's the circle of life and all that but it was so distracting from the message of the book. The themes of the book are interlaced

1. Eco-fiction/Climate change
2. Feminism

It was an interesting take and one I'll be mulling over for a long time I'm sure. About half way through it I stopped thinking about these dolphins as dolphins and more an ancient alien race, stop me before I fall into conspiracy 

The main character is "not like other girls" and when she leaves the safety of her pod because she has internalided her own flaws she is cap ured and then horribly abused on a number of occasions by other dolphins from another pod but she seems to just gloss over this fact. She becomes more comfortable and at home with her captures than she was at home which was very jarring.

All together a weird experience.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Physical abuse, Rape, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Sexual content, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

ank3's review

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring sad tense 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

bessadams's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Rape, and Violence

Moderate: Bullying, Physical abuse, Blood, Excrement, Kidnapping, and Death of parent

paukinra's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional fast-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: Rape, Blood, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

bethtrigg's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Rape

Moderate: Bullying, Death, Drug use, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, and Death of parent

withlivjones's review

challenging dark sad slow-paced

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

4.0

An excellently-crafted story of belonging and survival in the face of ecological crisis, from the perspective of marine life. Paull does a fantastic job of bringing the ocean to life and making every character seem so… human? It’s also super clear how badly the climate crisis has affected the oceans and their wildlife, and Paull doesn’t sugarcoat this at all - don’t go into this book thinking it’s going to be a whimsical story about dolphins because it’s sooo dark. Beautifully written with a lot of emotion - the only thing I didn’t like was that the romance (although I wouldn’t even call it that) at the end felt really rushed to the point that it didn’t make a lot of sense character-wise, it would have been better with a couple more chapters dedicated to developing the relationship between the characters. Other than that, though, I loved it! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Misogyny, Blood, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

ainoiisa's review

dark emotional sad

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Rape, Blood, and Fire/Fire injury

bookbinbaby's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark hopeful informative reflective sad 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

4.0

This is a story of our times, it will haunt and inspire in equal measure, it felt like 'Game of Thrones' meets 'Seaspiracy' for me. Brutal. Reflective. Memorable. The characters are each very interesting in how they are individually and where they interact with each other. Holds a mirror up to how we take and overpower the natural world and don't appreciate the fine balance of mother Earth and are selfish as a race and unnecessarily cruel. Laline Paull and how she is able to draw readers in to a world and society we would recognise but populate it with cetaceans and other sea fellows just amazes me and is a talent that is as unique as it is captivating deserves a lot more recognition.  I'll be reading Bees by her next, and will appreciate the natural world even more in an entirely different way than I ever did before. Powerful.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Grief, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Addiction, Animal death, Bullying, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, and Colonisation

rheagoveas's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad fast-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Rape, Violence, Blood, and Murder