Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers

35 reviews

nebulous_tide's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective 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? No

5.0

My favourite book of this series (so far)

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death and Alcohol

Minor: Drug use and Grief

ritabriar's review against another edition

emotional inspiring reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

This series takes another turn, this time with only a tenuous connection to the crew from book #1. (One of the families in the story is related to the captain of the ship.) 

This book is an in-depth study of society, how it's structured, and how we care for and neglect each other. 

At the same time, it has rich, well-developed characters who each have their own personalities. The seemingly-unrelated stories of each do intersect and affect each other, resulting in major life changes for many of them. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Grief, Gaslighting, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Drug use, Panic attacks/disorders, Alcohol, and Colonisation

Explosion of a colony space ship happens in the introduction, but it forms the historical setting of other events. Death is of

a point of view character

due to

accidental air-pressure explosion

Cultural gatekeeping, both to an outside academic and someone trying to re-connect to his cultural heritage

plantdonut's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful reflective 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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Grief

Moderate: Animal death, Bullying, Drug use, Racism, Medical content, Murder, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Colonisation

Minor: Cancer, Hate crime, Sexual content, Violence, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and War

lynxpardinus's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Animal death, Bullying, Drug use, Sexual content, Xenophobia, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, and Colonisation

Minor: Vomit, Toxic friendship, War, and Pandemic/Epidemic

jes7037's review against another edition

emotional lighthearted reflective slow-paced

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

2.5

I'm surprised but I actually didn't love this book. I've loved everything else that Becky Chambers has written, but for some reason this one didn't work for me. I'm not sure if it's a me problem though, maybe I'm just still stuck in a book hangover from Voyage of the Damned, which was absolutely amazing and I can't stop thinking about it.
I didn't really connect with the characters here, and it felt like disconnected stories for most of the book. Some of the characters stories end up intertwining at the very end, but I just... didn't care. It felt like barely anything actually happened, and what little did happen didn't really grab my attention or emotion. A lot of the book was introspective thoughts about what it means to be in the Exodan fleet, and what home means. Each character has a different perspective on the topic, showing the diversity of what it means to be human in this universe. The events of the book are mostly small everyday interactions, with each characters thoughts on humanity, home, family, etc.
I'm honestly disappointed, but I highly recommend the rest of Becky Chambers' books.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death

Minor: Bullying, Drug use, Sexual content, and Alcohol

amyreh's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug use, and Grief

Moderate: Bullying, Xenophobia, and Alcohol

Minor: Sexual content, Colonisation, and War

cattheteawitchfairy's review against another edition

adventurous inspiring slow-paced

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

4.0

Another fabulous book by Becky Chambers. Slow to start but it picked up towards the end with lots of emotional punches and aspects that I didn’t see coming. A relatable book of another world with poignant messages.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Drug use, Grief, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol

kastix's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective slow-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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug use, and Murder

Moderate: Toxic friendship and Alcohol

maryellen's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective relaxing sad slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Bullying, Death, Drug use, Grief, and Alcohol

Minor: Sexual content

_david_'s review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced

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

3.5

This book had some great moments and I do recommend reading it if you liked the rest of the series! I think the author nailed the use of multiple characters to tell the story about a whole culture. It created beautiful dialogue and told an interesting story about the value of tradition. I adored the characters, especially Isabel and Tamsin since they remind me of my own relationship.

I have two reasons why I've rated it lower than the other Wayfarer books so far. A small downside of especially the beginning of the book is that there are a lot of similar names for characters and a lot of characters without a very clear identifying feature at first. I can imagine that it's very hard to go through this book slowly since you might forget which character did what. The other, bigger downside is how some characters' stories ended. I didn't mind the endings themselves, but for a few of them they were told about it by others. The book expressed its morals by a very much "tell don't show" way. I think it's a shame, it made the book feel very biased, I think the same story could've been told without the very explicit dialogue. The moments I mean are:

Isabel talking to Kip and 'Pop' talking to Tessa. I think the museum scene for Kip and the talk with George for Tessa would've sufficed.

Having said that, I still really enjoyed the book! It's just the weakest in the series so far to me and I wanted to reflect that in my rating. As I've expressed in the beginning of this review, it contains some beautiful moments.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Confinement, Death, Grief, and Abandonment

Moderate: Racism, Xenophobia, and Alcohol

Minor: Drug use, Hate crime, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Sexual content, Violence, Religious bigotry, Pregnancy, Colonisation, War, and Classism

In the first chapter

Aya is unharmed. She screams because she sees something shocking.