Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

15 reviews

julesadventurezone's review against another edition

adventurous informative inspiring reflective 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? No

3.5

This was a nice cozy read and i had fun. (I mostly used it as a palate cleanser for whenever Lolita made me too angry to continue reading.)That said the plot is very meandering. Every chapter is like ah yes, here is a new sci fi worldbuilding thing and the resulting interesting moral question to contemplate. And then the book does not dig into those at all, it just comes up with a convenient solution if necessary and moves on.

For example, the protagonist is a runaway who is lying about her identity because her dad did some war crimes. And when this comes out the crew are like well, did you also do war crimes? No? Okay neat we don't care then. Which is boring! Where's the conflict? What if instead she did know or suspect? What if she was involved? Or even what if someone in the crew judged her anyway?

This kind of tease at something that could be an interesting thing to engage with happens at least a dozen times and it is never actually engaged with by the story or characters. 
I also thought it was kind of bizarre how gender is portrayed. The gender binary is still a normal thing across species even for the species that explicitly can change between sexes? Everyone is male or female, even all the AIs. I don't think that in the sci fi future cis people won't exist anymore but even in 2014 people had heard of non-binary identities and i would have liked to see some of that in this story too.
I did like the characters well enough and the alien and future human lore was fun and interesting to learn about.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Terminal illness, Violence, Xenophobia, Car accident, and War

Moderate: Chronic illness, Drug use, Genocide, Sexual content, Vomit, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, and Alcohol

Minor: Ableism, Animal death, Child death, Racial slurs, and Pregnancy

Warning for racial slurs only for made up speciesist slurs (i.e. "lizard" for a scaled alien person)

ivylovesbirds's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny lighthearted relaxing 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

5.0

Great book, but ugh, its exploration of speciesism and sentience fell short when they started casually eating animals. I’ve noticed this in other Becky Chambers books as well: all this wild technology and we’re still killing sentient beings! Why!?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death

foxclcves's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful medium-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality

Moderate: Animal death and Cursing

Minor: Drug use, Genocide, Racial slurs, Racism, Terminal illness, Violence, Xenophobia, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, War, and Injury/Injury detail

mobymaize's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Damn this shit is so good. I really like a sci-fi universe that is built around the people in it, and The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet provides. :)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Genocide, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Racism, Terminal illness, Torture, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Outing, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Child death and Blood

chelseareads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted tense fast-paced

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

5.0

So much gender, orientation, and relationship structure representation withOUT actual sex scenes (not my thing, personal preference not a judgement)!!! A wonderful ship and crew. Loved that.

The book read like a season of an episodic (with a season-long arc incorporated) sci-fi television. I don't know if that's a good thing as a book or not, but I'd LOVE to watch that show. And now I'm excited to read the tenuously-related Season 2.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Violence, Blood, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Gun violence

novella42's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted 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? It's complicated

5.0

I love this book too much to do it justice with a review. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Terminal illness, Violence, Xenophobia, and Grief

Moderate: War

Minor: Animal death, Drug use, Genocide, and Sexual content

dancers_and_dragons's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny inspiring reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism, Terminal illness, and Violence

Minor: Animal death, Drug use, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Colonisation, and War

Fantasy/sci-fi racism and xenophobia is present with certain individuals, but not the whole, and is presented as a bad thing overall. Racism as is present in our own day-to-day society is not present.

sacredgayometry's review against another edition

adventurous funny hopeful inspiring medium-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

This is one of my favorite books I have ever read, and one of the best sci-fi novels of all time in my opinion. The story is compelling but the found family relationships are the real draw of the book. You will become attached to characters you didn’t expect to, and feel like part of the family yourself as the reader. The world building is fantastic and I felt like a tourist learning about strange and beautiful new places at times. I love this book.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Ableism, Animal death, Death, Gun violence, Kidnapping, and Classism

Minor: Ableism, Animal death, Bullying, Cursing, Genocide, Misogyny, Racism, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and War

There are some challenging themes especially near the end of the book surrounding war, conflict, colonialism and xenophobia. There is challenging content surrounding death and grief as well as memory loss. Cultural misunderstandings and cultural differences are central to the book, and I felt were generally approached very respectfully. Otherwise a lighthearted read.

rosemarygrace1211's review against another edition

adventurous funny hopeful inspiring medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Chronic illness, Death, Genocide, Racism, Terminal illness, Violence, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Murder, War, and Classism

corriejn's review against another edition

adventurous lighthearted reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

This is a 5-star book not because it's some wildly innovative book, or the kind that is so all-absorbing that it leaves you with a "book hangover." But it is just a thoroughly enjoyable read. (All the CWs noted are fairly moderate-- that is, not super graphic content, and in general relate to specific events in the story.)

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Xenophobia, and War

Minor: Ableism, Animal death, Child death, Confinement, Drug use, Infidelity, Racism, Violence, Medical content, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail