Reviews tagging 'Child death'

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu

10 reviews

10stormlight's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

3.75

Some really conceptually interesting and thought provoking stuff. A collection of very emotional (and sometimes heartrending) stories. Primarily sci fi and magical realism with a heavy historical influence. 

As a warning, there is a ton of *extremely* graphic content in here. In fact, I think this may be the most explicitly graphic book I have ever read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Torture, Violence, Gore, Rape, Suicide, Body horror, Death, Grief, Medical content, Xenophobia, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cursing, Racism, Child death, Sexual content, War, Death of parent, Confinement, Gun violence, and Murder

Minor: Terminal illness, Bullying, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Sexism, Fire/Fire injury, and Racial slurs

blenchbooks's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Genocide, Gore, Suicide, Torture, Medical trauma, Murder, Child death, Hate crime, Medical content, Racism, Rape, Forced institutionalization, and War

kthudson15's review against another edition

This book was very good, would recommend. The only reason I DNFed is because I’m in a fragile mental state & some of the stories were sad (in a good way; I just can’t handle them currently). The last story has some content that was not helping my mental health so I decided it was better to just stop than push through. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture and Grief

Moderate: War, Child death, Death of parent, Racism, Genocide, and Violence

Minor: Racial slurs and Murder

lynxpardinus's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional informative reflective sad

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Trafficking, Violence, Colonisation, Genocide, Medical content, Medical trauma, Child abuse, Death of parent, Racism, Suicide, War, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Rape, Racial slurs, Infidelity, Police brutality, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Cancer, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexual violence, and Slavery

Minor: Dementia and Sexual content

kalira's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-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? Yes

5.0

Ken Lie has a brilliant approach to weaving together history and realism with fantastical/speculative fiction elements, drawing it all into poignant and deeply emotional relief.

It took me a long time to read this anthology, largely because the stories are very good . . . and sometimes, so painful and heavy and immediate that upon finishing I needed to set the book aside and take some time. Both to process the story and to give myself a little emotional space to breathe.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Sexual violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Genocide, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Rape, Child death, Religious bigotry, Slavery, Classism, Cultural appropriation, Gore, Trafficking, Vomit, Hate crime, Fire/Fire injury, Body horror, Death, War, Alcohol, Colonisation, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Racism, Torture, Violence, Chronic illness, and Grief

missbear's review against another edition

dark reflective sad medium-paced

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

2.25

I actually started this book quite awhile ago, sometime last year. I picked it up because I had heard it compared with works by Ted Chiang, who also writes sci fi short stories (I read and absolutely adored Exhalation in 2020). But I didn't really love it and put it down, with the idea that maybe with some more distance from Ted Chiang, I might like it better. Unfortunately, that didn't really happen - there were certainly stories I liked in here, and I often liked the premise and purpose of Ken Liu's writing, but a lot of the stories didn't land quite right for me. I think that one major piece of it is that I found Ted Chiang's stories to be quite optimistic and hopeful about humanity and I thought that the comparison I had heard between the two authors was because these stories would be similarly optimistic. They are really not though, on the whole - I would say that the theme of this collection is something more like "we must not forget the suffering we have caused to each other." Even when the tales are more hopeful, they are often still hopeful in a sad kind of way (i.e. "there will always be people willing to sacrifice their lives for the good of humanity.")

To that end, I found that some of these stories were quite dark and brutally violent. That's not something that I necessarily have a problem with, but it really caught me off guard in this collection and somewhat soured the experience for me. Again, this was possibly a personal issue, having gone into the collection with a mistaken impression of its contents, but I did not know that several of the stories would include (view spoiler) I actually kind of feel like Ken Liu wanted those scenes to come as a shock, or wanted them to be contrasted against stories that at first seem simple and innocent, to make a point about history and our culpability in it when we ignore/forget brutal parts of the past. And I guess I respect that as an authorial choice (plus, I do understand that its a collection of stories that were written at different times, so it's not necessarily meant to feel cohesive), but personally I found it quite jarring and I don't think it really had the intended effect on me. It almost makes me feel a bit guilty, that I'm complaining about reading about disturbing things, when I think Ken Liu's point is basically "well, these things actually happened to real people and we have a responsibility to remember that," but I can't help feeling misled.

Don't get me wrong, I did very much enjoy some of these stories ("The Waves" and "State Change" stood out especially) and I greatly respect the message that Liu is sending about history. I'm just afraid the medium was just not to my taste, whether that's my squeamishness or misleading marketing or whatever else.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Torture, Child death, and Rape

annaluzia's review

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I think this is one of the most impressing books I've read in a very long time. the experience reading this was indescribable, I don't even know where to start. maybe by rereading it again and again 
I think the themes of communication, story telling and heritage are some that I really love to read about. I also loved how Ken Liu obviously did his research on some of the topics - I am now really interested to know more about them.
some stories (especially the last one!) made me want to throw up. some were sad. some were really interesting thought processes. all in all, I can't say anything else about this book that that reading it was an experience (and that maybe you shouldn't do it like me and plan to read one story each before going to sleep - that's not going to work for different reasons) 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal death, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Medical content, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Murder, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide, Torture, Violence, and Xenophobia

caitlin_bookchats's review

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful reflective medium-paced

• 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

Spectacular short story collection. Each story distinct; wide variety of settings, characters, topics, lengths; thoughtful questions raised.

I didn't love every story, but I loved most of them and there were very few that I did not value in some way. Truly a quality collection.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Genocide, Gun violence, Medical trauma, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, and Torture

Triggers vary widely by story, particularly memorable: The Regular discusses the search for a serial killer who targets high dollar sex workers. Some of the content is in the killer's voice. The detective is also dealing with the death of a child by abusing body modification tech. The Literomancer mentions some racial slurs used by children towards another child. It also details torture of one character by another. The torture is not glorified or seen as necessary/good but it is graphic/detailed. A Brief History of the Trans Pacific Tunnel mentions "comfort women", forced prison labor, and the cover up of both. The Litigation Master and the Monkey King - mentions the historical 15th? century massacre of a Chinese city and what, 50 years later, the ruling dynasty does to continue to cover it up. The Man who Ended History: a Documentary details atrocities performed by the Japanese by Unit 731 during WWII and the ways the USA and western world is complicit in covering them up. (Medical experimentation on humans) It includes but does not endorse denialist phrases. The Simulacrum mentions cheating (mentioned here because it's not in the list of triggers.

perditorian's review

emotional informative reflective sad fast-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Racism, Torture, and Rape

readandfindout's review

emotional reflective medium-paced

4.25

On first read in 2017: There were multiple five star stories for me in this anthology. However, because there were also some two and two and a half star stories, this gets 4 stars overall. Ken Liu is such a smart writer. I really enjoy his style.

2023 reread: 4.25 stars overall

The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species: 5 stars (2017), 4 stars (2023)
State Change: 4 stars (2017), 4.5 stars (2023)
The Perfect March: 3 stars (2017), 4 stars (2023)
Good Hunting: 4.5 stars (2017 and 2023)
The Literomancer: 5 stars (2017 and 2023)
Simulacrum: 2 stars (2017), 3.5 stars (2023)
The Regular: 4.5 stars (2017 and 2023)
The Paper Menagerie: 4.5 stars (2017), 5 stars (2023)
An Advanced Readers' Picture Book of Comparative Cognition: 3 stars (2017 and 2023)
The Waves: 5 stars (2017), 3.5 stars (2023)
Mono No Aware: 5 stars (2017), 4.5 stars (2023)
All the Flavors: 3 stars (2017), 4 stars (2023)
A Brief History of the Trans-Pacific Tunnel: 2.5 stars (2017), 4 stars (2023)
The Litigation Master and the Monkey King: 4 stars (2017), 5 stars (2023)
The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary: 5 stars (2017 and 2023)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Child death, Xenophobia, Blood, Physical abuse, Violence, Genocide, Murder, Grief, Colonisation, Death, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Gun violence, Hate crime, War, Body horror, Torture, Gore, Medical trauma, and Rape

Moderate: Suicide, Racism, and Death of parent

Minor: Racial slurs