Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Dreadnought by April Daniels

11 reviews

lyncolonbracket's review against another edition

emotional hopeful 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? Yes

4.75

i kinda hate superhero action scenes but the ones that are just people talking are amazingly well done and made me love this book so much more

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Deadnaming, Homophobia, Sexism, Transphobia, and Murder

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, and Sexual harassment

teyn's review against another edition

adventurous 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? No

3.75

I would've loved this if not for the gendered fatphobia and ableism that added absolutely nothing to the story.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Deadnaming, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Transphobia, and Violence

Moderate: Ableism, Addiction, Homophobia, Misogyny, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Toxic friendship and Sexual harassment

gameoftomes's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense fast-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

4.75

Amazing. The book really gives a payoff for its superhero genre, transgender representation, and first person POV. It uses all of these well, and towards a conclusion with physical and emotional stakes involved. 

There are good action sequences, a bit of gore, and a good bit of body horror. But none of it overwhelms the novel. The supers don’t feel regurgitated and cliché. It feels like it could fit in with comic book superheroes, yet isn’t weighed down with tropes. The world of superheroes and hypertech is fleshed out without being exposition heavy. 

Warning that there is a significant amount of transphobia, including slurs, deadnaming, emotional abuse, and parents kicking out their 15 year old kid. But none of this stops main character Danielle from being super, from being flawed, from being a beacon of hope. Individuals are not a monolith, and I think at the author is transgender herself helps. 

This is a first person perspective YA novel that feels like you’re in the head of a real teenager. Danny clearly had reactions with a lot of self-hate because of how actively awful her dad is and how passively awful her mom is. So negative self-talk happens in stressful situations. Her journey as a superhero starts out as finally getting her body to match her gender identity, then fighting crime becomes an escape from reality, and finally starts to become a community, a newfound family. 

I honestly came in thinking I would be lightly enjoyable fun, but I’m really blown away with the characters, world-building, and balance of emotional, fun, and tense moments. I might have to break my book buying ban to grab the sequel. 

9/10 objectively a good time.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Deadnaming, Emotional abuse, Gore, Homophobia, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful 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? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Deadnaming, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Misogyny, Sexism, Transphobia, Violence, Medical content, Outing, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Body horror, Bullying, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Murder, Lesbophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Ableism, Addiction, Cancer, Drug use, Fatphobia, Racism, Rape, Vomit, Death of parent, and War

karcitis's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional 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? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Transphobia, Violence, and Lesbophobia

Moderate: Addiction, Cursing, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Outing, Toxic friendship, Sexual harassment, Dysphoria, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Body horror, Bullying, Deadnaming, Fatphobia, Rape, Self harm, and Vomit

nowjamie's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful mysterious 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? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Deadnaming, Death, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Transphobia, Murder, Lesbophobia, Outing, Toxic friendship, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

jjjreads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Deadnaming, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infertility, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Murder, Lesbophobia, Outing, Abandonment, Dysphoria, and Classism

Moderate: Addiction, Body horror, Chronic illness, Death, Fatphobia, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Fire/Fire injury, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Ableism, Addiction, Cancer, Child death, Genocide, Self harm, Slavery, Vomit, and Gaslighting

brassmonkey's review against another edition

adventurous slow-paced

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

1.25

Not good. Also kind of insane that a book that looks and reads like it was written for middle schoolers says tranny so much. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Transphobia, Outing, and Dysphoria

Moderate: Child abuse, Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexism, Violence, Medical content, Medical trauma, Toxic friendship, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Drug use, Fatphobia, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, and Murder

lily1304's review against another edition

adventurous tense 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? Yes

3.25

Definitely not a military-funded Marvel-style superhero story, but still uses a few overdone superhero tropes. The plot beats are very familiar to anyone who's seen Spiderman and Invincible.

I like Danny and Sarah though! And the concept of a totally closeted trans girl transforming into a supermodel is hilarious. There's better YA out there, but it's really cool to have a trans heroine.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Misogyny and Sexual harassment

Minor: Rape and Self harm

Characters use the word

"rape"

a few times but only figuratively

booksthatburn's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

3.0

This does a lot of good things as far as trans rep and I'm going to talk about those before I discuss why I don't recommend it as a whole. It handles issues of dysphoria in a realistic way, as well as showing the way that socially transitioning helped Danny experience gender euphoria once the medical side of transitioning was handled by the superpowers. One of the main plotlines deals with domestic abuse from a parent, with an ebb and flow to the verbal abuse which showed how the general pattern of yelling and silence created an overall situation which was worse than any one incident. She doesn't have everything solved by her body being transformed, which provides a narrative opportunity to show transphobia. When depicting scenes with transphobic slurs and other very cruel language it's often first depicted as a summary of what hearing those words made Danny feel, then later when she's able to unpack it and start dealing with it the reader is told what some of those words were. It helps to center Danny and how she was hurt by misogyny and transphobia before it presents those slurs for the reader. 

I like how the world in the book is presented as morally grey, with various factions vying to Danny to join their side. For most of the book it felt like it really was a morally grey world, but I was disappointed that towards the end it seems to pick a specific side. I hope the sequel proves me wrong on that, if I decide to read it. Calamity is a great mentor, she's my favorite character. I also like Doctor Impossible but that got trickier as the story progressed. The worldbuilding works well, sketching the idea of this world that is very different from ours because of when the superheroes showed up, but recognizable enough because of what was chosen to parallel our real developments. 

Now for the main reason I don't recommend this: I'm disturbed by the way it handles disability and ableism, both with the casual use of ableist slurs (from characters of all cape factions, so this wasn't just how to mark the villains) and with the treatment of physical disabilities. There’s a disturbing battle scene

where Danny is fighting goons in mech suits, but it turns out they’re embedded in the suits instead of having their organic limbs controlling the suits. One of the goons is someone Danny met earlier and he had all four limbs in that earlier scene, so the implication is that the villain removed his limbs in order to put him in the suit. He also still is on the villain's side while he's in the suit, so I see three possible scenarios: He lost his limbs in some undescribed accident and is being further exploited by the villain he's been helping; His limbs were unwillingly removed by the villain but decided to help them anyway; or He had his limbs were willingly removed by the villain because he believed in the plan so much that he gave up his limbs to get a mech suit. No matter which of the three scenarios is in play, what happens is that the protagonist and supposed hero forcibly removes a quadruple amputee from his mech suit (which is also an assistive device), causing great pain to him, the hero notices that it causes great pain, and then proceeds to do the same thing to the other four amputees in mech suits, narrating each time how much it hurts them to be ripped out of the suits. I'm, frankly, uninterested in trying to hash out exactly what I wish Danny had done differently (though leaving the goon on a roof after removing his assistive device is definitely NOT something I think she should have done), I'm more concerned with how callously this treats multiple disabled characters, both named and unnamed, and how the reveal that this previously-limbed character now has fewer limbs is treated as shocking and horrific. The villain is a cyborg, and exactly which parts of her body are organic or inorganic are described in a way that feels like it's supposed to be disturbing. Finally, there's a friendly character who also loses a limb and expresses feeling like there's nothing to live for now, which, while certainly something a real person in that scenario might express, seems narratively bad in the context of the earlier ableism.

Overall this seems like pretty good handling of trans stuff and domestic abuse by a parent, but mediocre to terrible handling of ableism and disability, and therefore I don't recommend it. Maybe the sequel could win me back, but that won't be enough to make me feel good about this particular book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Homophobia, Transphobia, Blood, Medical content, Murder, and Dysphoria

Moderate: Misogyny, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Excrement, and Vomit

Minor: Drug use and Rape