Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Pod by Laline Paull

77 reviews

ottinye's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Blood

quinzel_14's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

3.5

Beautifully written with captivating world-building and an engaging cast of characters, Pod presents a solid story; however, the degree of violence and tragedy makes the novel incredibly hard to read throughout.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Gore, and Rape

berodatheelf's review

emotional informative sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.0

Informative and well researched but absolutely brutal, Laulie Paull leaves no punches. The story weaves humans impact on the environment with feminism but is told uniquely from the POV of various aquatic creatures (mostly dolphins). 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Child death, Drug use, Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

seasonedreadings's review against another edition

challenging dark 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: Animal death, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Rape, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

lostgwennel's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective slow-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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Rape, and Violence

loesm's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Physical abuse

natalie_h's review against another edition

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Blood

Moderate: Rape

kamuffel's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

I Never expected to be so invested into a story written from dolphins/fish perspective. While there were a few things I did not really need (heteronormative love story between two of the animals) I do see how it helped to be really invested with their fate. It is incredibly smart and intensely confronting. For anybody who is passionate about , or even I interested in, the climate crisis, pollution, over fishing, marine creatures, this is a big recommendation. 

I will think about this book for some time, and personified animals are definitely not new. But this one hit differently

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Domestic abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, and Dysphoria

alargelady's review against another edition

dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

1.0

I read this after watching a Leena Norms video talking about this book, I'm going to have to rewatch that video because this was nothing like what I was expecting. Interesting concept and unique perspective that flopped in the writing and plot. The writing was all over the place, inconsistent use of terminology (e.g. sometimes the dolphins see moult and don't really know what it is, then they call it plastic, then they're back to calling it the strange moult again) and it felt like she had a thesaurus out to try to use more diverse words without getting the context right to use them. The amount of (and description of) rape was grotesque but in a way that did not contribute to the story and overall message. If the goal of the story is to make us think critically about anthropogenic changes in the ocean, why does the main character need to get raped by 4 different dolphins multiple times? Too many POVs to have satisfying character development for them all. For example the wrasse storyline.. what did that contribute to the story? I kept reading just to see if the ending justified the discomfort of the story.. it did not.

Lastly, as a biologist it annoys me to no end she describes spinner and bottlenose dolphins as 2 different races of the same species and in the prologue they're a hybrid colony mating together. They are in fact different species (AND GENUS!) that would not be able to have viable offspring. After all the research she claimed to do, this was a strange fabrication. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Rape

emmathomasina's review against another edition

Too sad

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Rape