Reviews tagging 'Torture'

La Brigada Lluminosa by Anna Llisterri, Marina Vidal, Kameron Hurley

15 reviews

caseythereader's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Sexual content

tsunni's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

This is like a mix of Cyberpunk, Full Metal Jacket, Old Man's War, and time travel; a deliberately confusing mix of the horrors of war and jumping through time and obedience to too-powerful all-surveilling corporations manufacturing reality for their own gain. Expertly written in easy to read prose and bluntly disturbing imagery, the story viewpoint follows the main character Dietz, a poor nobody subcitizen who enlists in a corporate army for a chance to be a privileged member of society in some impossibly distant timeframe, and we watch her go completely mad (or go completely sane) over the course of the book as it jumps between a discordant number of timeframes, scifi tech horrors, and brutal scenes of war.

I didn't find the jumping and out of order timeframes too confusing to follow, but I also think we're not entirely meant to be able to keep up with it; it's not what the book is about. Instead I was hit harder by how much Dietz's world was an extension of our own, how reality was whatever the powerful wanted it to be, how dehumanized and mindless she was deliberately trained to become, how class warfare and misinformation was weaponized, how people are broken down and seen as disposable by the powerful. I think this story emotionally resounded with me because I see so many parallels with the directions the US and other parts of the western world has been going lately (especially today, a day after the US Supreme Court struck down the Chevron Doctrine).

Unlike Starship Troopers, which is the obvious direct novel comparison and a book I'd never liked, the clear message here in The Light Brigade -- one given in an almost direct author-to-reader plea in a forgivable deus ex machina ending -- is that the power to change all this for the better resides in the people, and reality is what we can make it; if we could scrape together the willpower to do it. Whether that's the right answer or not to our societal woes (and I don't expect Hurley or anyone else to have a simple answer, because there isn't one), I really enjoyed this novel and what it tried to do, and I think it's one I'd reread at some point.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Torture, Violence, Murder, and Classism

bowienerd_82's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and War

Moderate: Animal death and Torture

lizzielemon's review against another edition

adventurous challenging mysterious tense medium-paced

• Loveable characters? No

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Torture, Blood, and War

Moderate: Vomit and Fire/Fire injury

picotly's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Fantastic anti-war novel with on-the-edge-of-your-seat time travel plot.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Torture, Police brutality, and War

Moderate: Genocide, Colonisation, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Child death

Tough read but doesn't feel gratuitous.

tahnok's review against another edition

3.0

Standard military scifi start, didn't care about the main character for a long time. Ending felt a bit too "power of love"

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Torture, Violence, and War

nittiotvaan's review against another edition

challenging dark 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Suicide, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, and War

Moderate: Torture, Police brutality, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Animal death, Panic attacks/disorders, and Pandemic/Epidemic

belovedsnail's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

4.75

I had a really tough time with the first half of the book. The hard military stuff was not me at all, but there was a moment where a switch flipped and I was in the world of the book. Last half paid for all.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Torture, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal cruelty and Animal death

nekoshka's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Vomit, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Chronic illness, Mental illness, Suicide, Torture, Xenophobia, and Death of parent

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, and Classism

hendrixpants's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful inspiring tense medium-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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and War

Moderate: Torture