Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

9 reviews

ekgranstro's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-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

5.0

I unironically think this book has changed me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Death, Incest, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Police brutality, Grief, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Pregnancy, and War

Minor: Abandonment

ylimets's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective sad 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

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicide and Xenophobia

Minor: Animal death, Child death, and Incest

_david_'s review against another edition

adventurous challenging hopeful inspiring reflective medium-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

5.0

The worldbuilding is masterfully executed, revealing a rich and diverse world and culture within the confines of a relatively short book. The characters are captivating, and the narrative effectively captures the challenges of collaboration with a culture one doesn't fully comprehend and vice versa.

The book successfully presents multiple perspectives, with the main character questioning his own ideas and cultural norms after engaging with Winter's people. What stands out is how Winter and its countries aren't portrayed as utopias nor lesser places than earth. They're not good or bad, just different, with their own moral grey areas. Even the two countries that are shown in the book have big cultural differences. Eventhough gender is a significant theme and the first thing you'll likely learn when looking up the book, the core focus revolves around learning to respect and collaborate with another culture. The way gender is represented in the book is in a world that shows the what-if scenario of a society where gender (or sexuality) has no impact on people's role in it.

The only aspect I wish were different is that 'neutral' pronouns and other terms are male to the reader. Perhaps it highlights the flaws of the main character and his default way of thinking. But I still found it odd.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Police brutality, Grief, and Deportation

Moderate: Animal death, Incest, Suicide, Xenophobia, and Gaslighting

Minor: Cursing, Incest, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

paloverdepages's review against another edition

challenging mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

stuck between a 4.75 and 5 for this one- there were a few passages about gender that i resonated strongly with. i wish i understood more, hope that reading the rest of the series will give me some insight when i get around to rereading this one. maybe i'm too hesitant to give books 5 stars; i just saw no reason not to with this one. also now i get to talk about it with so many people! so excellent, absolutely merits a reread and maybe some hardcopy annotating.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Death, Misogyny, and Forced institutionalization

Minor: Animal death, Incest, and Suicide

smolren's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.0

I didn't expect this. I started reading it and thought it was going to be a lot of hard work for little reward, but I was wrong. I'm so grateful to have read about the beautiful friendship at the core of this book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Forced institutionalization, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Confinement, Blood, and Grief

Minor: Animal death, Drug abuse, Incest, Misogyny, Sexual content, Suicide, and Vomit

elizlizabeth's review against another edition

challenging reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did but the way Le Guin delves into spiny and complicated topics so casually is truly mesmerizing. 
The various POVs only clarify the world building tangentially which makes you feel like you too are seeing a culture from afar, and in turn this gives the similarities and critiques of our own culture a bigger "punch". The language and slang however can be confusing especially if you're (like me) not used to sci-fi, but honestly once I realized there's no way I'm going to get every single reference on my first reading and just plowed on, my experience improved by 100x. Some books are meant to be read more than once to truly get them and this is one of them.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Torture, and Police brutality

Moderate: Ableism

Minor: Animal death

One of the characters hunts small game for food; this is not described in detail. A group of characters has a biological variation that makes them able to predict the future, this is framed as painful for them, yet a different character points out that it's a "gift" not to be "cured" even if they're hurting. The characters of the planet present cyclical sexual dymorphism, the narrative goes into detail about the biology of this which could trigger dysphoria in some readers.

idajoh's review against another edition

emotional inspiring reflective tense slow-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

5.0

At some point I thought it contained somewhat of an internalised mysoginistic tone, however, I think it was mostly the voice of the main character, rather than the authors opinion

Overall, a very good read where you are taken to a vast world in outer space

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Excrement, and Vomit

Moderate: Animal death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Incest, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicide, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Vomit, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

pastelkerstin's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense

• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book took a while to get interesting, but once it did, I found it hard to put down.

At its core there are some pretty good radical ideas in here about favouring community over patriotism. Genly speaks of a world based on cooperation and without law enforcement out among the stars. What a vision.

Gender and sex is also obviously a big topic in this book. I think it shows the arbitrariness of gender roles well, even though Genly and the other Envoys struggle with understanding this, as they come from a binarist society. Genly often makes sexist comments about manly or womanly qualities he sees in the Gethenians, people who are neither men nor women (or who are both, depending how you want to see it). But I don't think that means that the reader is supposed to agree with Genly. Seeing whatever a main character says as correct is a misguided way of reading fiction, in my opinion.
That's also why when Genly's interior monologue says that sexual desire/attraction is people's driving force (a very Freudian idea) and a requirement for being human, and therefore the Gethenians with their sexual cycle seem strange and inhuman to him, I think we're not supposed to think he's right. After all,

Genly learns to see Therem fully, as not fitting into Genly's ideas of sexuality and gender, but as a full human being, despite these differences.

There is the implication here that asexuality either doesn't exist on the other planets or that Genly isn't aware of it. So I would put an aphobia warning on this just in case, because reading "no sexual attraction = inhuman" stings even if you know that Genly struggles to see past his own experience of the world.

I think Genly and Therem's relationship is the most interesting part of this book. And it feels very queer to me, even though

they are never officially together

and Gethen doesn't seem to have a concept of queerness (unlike Genly's homeworld).

Overall, I liked this book, even though it has some elements that are a bit squicky or hard to read for me, like the way incest is tolerated on Gethen under certain circumstances and how this is part of one the main characters' backstories, or the aforementioned sexism and (almost certainly unintentional) asexual erasure from Genly.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Incest, Misogyny, Sexism, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Body shaming, Child death, Fatphobia, Miscarriage, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Acephobia/Arophobia, and Pregnancy

Minor: Ableism, Homophobia, Infertility, and Suicide

troisha's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement and Death

Moderate: Gun violence, Incest, Misogyny, Violence, Xenophobia, Medical content, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal death, Body shaming, Suicide, Blood, Pregnancy, and Alcohol