Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler

62 reviews

camerondeja's review against another edition

challenging dark sad medium-paced

3.75

Honestly I wish there was a sequel. I want to read more about the Ina and Shori

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Pedophilia, Racism, Death of parent, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury

peachani's review against another edition

challenging mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

1. This is about vampires, but
   they work much like the aliens in Butler's other books.
2. Again, I struggle with understanding why Butler includes taboo sex acts. I don't think it's for shock value. 
3. The
   trial and detective work
   were the most interesting parts.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Death, Gun violence, Pedophilia, Sexual content, and Violence

Minor: Animal death, Cursing, Gore, Hate crime, Infertility, Racial slurs, Racism, Blood, Grief, Cannibalism, Death of parent, and Murder

the_true_monroe's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense 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? No

3.5

I found this to be interesting and an engaging, intriguing story. I am glad I made my way through it.

But I do need to say that having the protagonist being called a “child” the entire time and looking like she was 10 years old is unsettling, even knowing she is an over half century old vampire. Vampire adults completely acknowledged their attraction to her and only being able to not act yet since she is still a child!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Racism, Sexual content, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Genocide and Misogyny

Minor: Ableism, Biphobia, and Slavery

chrobin's review against another edition

challenging fast-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? No

4.0

While clear and simple in style, the convoluted mess of power dynamics will twist around inside you. Occasionally the prose will lull you into a sense of safety, only for you to round the corner on  extreme discomfort.

As someone who has been obsessed with vampire stories since I was a pre-teen, raised on Anne Rice, I always knew that vampire stories were allegories for sexual desire, lust, consent, etc. Many vampire stories are written as romantic fantasies of women losing agency, but wanting it so badly… romanticizing age gaps, enthrallment, violent acts of all natures, always coming back to pleasure, repressed sexuality. Just look at Twilight...  Butler takes all of these themes, flips them around, and makes you look hard at them, very plainly - which for me adds to the discomfort. And while many claim she didn’t address the pedophilia appropriately, I think that her ability to make you so very uncomfortable in so few words is a part of this matter-of-fact horror.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Medical trauma, and Fire/Fire injury

fannylaine's review against another edition

dark inspiring mysterious reflective fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship

Minor: Animal death

franklloydweft's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense 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

4.0

I gave this a worse review on fable, but after reading Anne Rice it gets a higher rating from me now!

Copied from fable:
The only reason this isn’t getting a higher rating from me is for things that I think Butler totally intended, but I just couldn’t get past. The idea of Shori having the appearance of a 10 year old child without her memory, despite her not being human, and still behaving sexually with adult human beings really icked me out. I felt better and better about it as I read, but I cannot get past the sheer discomfort it gave me in the beginning. I also thought that particular element took away from my enjoyment more than enhancing it. I understand what Butler was doing with that particular detail; it’s deliberately uncomfortable to our human sensibilities and further *others* the Ina from us in a subtle way. However, I think for me personally it detracted from this overall very interesting take on vampire lore. The idea of symbionts having an almost exclusively sexual relationship towards feeding was a little off-putting for me too. I think I would have liked it better if that relationship was more ambiguous. No matter, I still really enjoyed this book!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Death, Racism, Blood, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Gun violence

kemrick19's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Racism, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Grief, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

roseandivy's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

2.5

this was kind of just... solidly mediocre? i want to try something else of octavia butler's, but i found the back half of this kind of boring and confusing (i couldn't keep the names of all the council ina and symbionts straight), and the fact that shori looked like a child was really off-putting-- which i suppose was the point, but it made it hard for me to focus on anything else in the book. i thought the take on vampires was interesting, but that couldn't make up for the fact that i found wright irritating and the plot dragged on.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Cursing, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Blood, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Ableism, Incest, Grief, and Gaslighting

Minor: Animal death, Child death, Homophobia, Infertility, and Pregnancy

tamara_joy's review against another edition

Too icky.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Animal death, Gun violence, Sexual content, Blood, and Cannibalism

rainbowrachel's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious 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? It's complicated

3.25

I feel conflicted. On the one hand, there's a lot to like here. Butler was a great writer, and as is expected from her work, this was laced with intesting social commentary and world building. On the other had, this is probably my least favourite of Butler's works that I've read so far and, yes, the "it's not really paedophilia because she's actually a vampire" thing is hard to get over. On another day, I might have ended up rating this consdierably higher or considerably lower, but a somewhat middling rating does seem right.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Racism, Blood, Mass/school shootings, Cannibalism, and Fire/Fire injury