Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

35 reviews

josiemeyer's review against another edition

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

4.0


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toniboni's review against another edition

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

4.0


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earthtomanda's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Wow. My first full-length Atwood novel, and I am amazed at just how many aspects of humanity she is able to capture. While the plot should seem fantastical, she stays firmly in the plausible and (perhaps) the likely. Many scenes are incredibly graphic though, so tread lightly if that’s a concern — Going through the content warnings, it was hard to find something that wasn’t at least mentioned in this book.

I did struggle with how prominent discussion of sexual abuse towards children was. It was incredibly disturbing. I am still grappling with why that was a necessary inclusion — though it is Atwood, and I’m sure it was not done without some thought. Also, Jimmy can fight me.

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suzylit's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective tense fast-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? No

4.0


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maddie_can_read's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book gives me a weird sense of nostalgia, I read it for the first time at 17/18 and it was my first foray into speculative fiction. 

I think it's the perfect combo of speculative fiction, interesting writing, characterization, intriguing plot, and weirdness.

The only bad thing about this book is that you can never get the first reading experience back once you know what happened to the world. 

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smeagol357's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I loved this book so much. It dragged me over broken glass, put me on soft mattresses, and then whacked me in the head unexpectedly. Has to be one of the best books I’ve ever read. Strongly recommend to everyone. Do not ignore the trigger warnings.

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rainieschulte's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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filisia's review against another edition

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Solely relies on settings, overtly sexual scenes involving minors in small parts, and whatever we learn about the characters remains superficial even as we move through flashbacks (that don’t bridge any gaps in our initial discoveries of the state of their world and how it came to be). Lots of drawn out details of memories that never add anything by way of character development/understanding or to the plot or setting. I listened to the audio book and even 4 hours in it was tough to stay engaged. 

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ashy_slashy's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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siobhanward's review against another edition

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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? Yes

2.5

 I keep picking up books by Margaret Atwood thinking they'll be great. Some of her works are fantastic and hold up well and others just aren't that. I think part of the problem is there's a certain style to her works and some aspects I love while others I'm just done with. This book just didn't work for me - while I will say some aspects were pretty eerie after an actual global pandemic, one clever portion of the book did not make up for the rest, which was just meh.

I found my biggest issue was how slowly things moved. There was so much background that it seemed to take ages to figure out what was actually happening in the book. There were also some really graphic descriptions of child abuse, so be warned about those. Atwood has a gift for writing female characters caught in miserable situations, and her strongest works are ones where they can find the power to change those situations, while her weakest books are the ones where they just fall down and can't be saved. 

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