Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Messias de Duna by Frank Herbert

20 reviews

wickedgrumpy's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

What a tone shift from the first book!  Honestly this one kind of went off the rails into unhinged territory in the second half.  It was a very slow political machination start and then it turns into everything falling into place depending on who did the better job at plotting and scheming...  Absolutely wild.  I don't know how I feel about it fully but I'm going to think about it for a long time.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Ableism, Addiction, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Body shaming, Child death, Confinement, Deadnaming, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Genocide, Incest, Infertility, Infidelity, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Colonisation, Dysphoria, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

megermoe's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective 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

4.0

The second novel in the dune series picked up much faster than the first, but still exposed the reader to even more of the world and its lore. The pacing worked very well alongside the vision driven plot lines. I felt as though I was guessing the entire time what future Paul was seeking throughout the novel. I did feel as though the big bad in this novel wasn’t as enjoyable as the first, nothing beats a sinister Harkonnen. I highly recommend  reading these books in order.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent and Pregnancy

antarcticophile's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective fast-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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Suicide, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, and War

Moderate: Blood

owenwilsonbaby's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

3.5

‘I live in an apocalyptic dream. My steps fit into it so precisely that I fear most of all I will grow bored reliving the thing so exactly.’

Why was the end of Paul’s arc so filler-y? Some great character beats but this took me so long to read and frequently lost me along the way. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Child death, Incest, Infertility, Violence, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

nyxlikesbook's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Grief, Murder, and War

Moderate: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Terminal illness, Religious bigotry, and Abortion

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Death of parent

thebibutterfly's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.0

This was an interesting continuation of the previous book and a satisfying end, if a sad one. It was much stronger prose and tightly edited, which I appreciated. It was fascinating to see how an abundance of water affected the desert people and their culture. It was the tiny details that really sold this narrative and I appreciated the solid attempts to explain the systems and societies at work. The audiobook was well articulated, but I will have to buy paperbacks to dissect.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Death of parent

Moderate: Infertility, Pregnancy, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

laura_nel13's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Drug use, Infertility, Violence, Grief, Pregnancy, and War

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Genocide, Incest, Slavery, and Death of parent

jelliclejules's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious reflective slow-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Violence, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Ableism, Addiction, Xenophobia, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Pregnancy, War, and Classism

Minor: Incest, Infertility, and Suicide

roget's review against another edition

dark reflective fast-paced

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

3.0

 There's so much going on here, and this review is full of spoilers, so skip it if you don't want it ruined for you.

1.) Paul's on about trying to disengage the jihad all of Dune 1 and, to an extent, 2. There's this path of "discrediting himself" that he talks about, but at the end, the path he takes is one that doesn't discredit himself?? Duncan's literally reflecting on how Paul's final actions establish him as a religious figurehead for the Fremen people.

2.) There's clearly a theme here about Paul having no power over his power, and being mostly just aware of the flow of time but ultimately just as tossed about by it as everyone else. I get that. But also, he's so resistant to changing and stepping off the path in case one of the worse visions happen that he lets an incomprehensible genocide play out to avoid a somehow even worse incomprehensible genocide? Am I getting that right? There was no point at which he might've given an order to "no, leave that planet alone?" or "no, don't kill all those people?" That just...wouldn't have worked? What's Herbert trying to say, here? That certain pressures and rhetoric are unstoppably destructive?

3.) Chani and Irulan deserved better, but Chani deserved way, way better.

4.) The incest thing was extremely ick. As was Herbert sexualizing the crap out of a fourteen/fifteen year old girl's body. I don't give a fig about the acrobatics the story performs to make Alia a grown-up inside. This stuff isn't thought-up in a vacuum, and therefore it absolutely merits some major side eye. That alone knocked my enjoyment of this novel down multiple stars.

5.) Chani should've been given a voice to speak to Paul's decision making on her and their children's behalf. There was opportunity for good conflict there, and it floated out the window because Chani's reduced to an Ophelia, here.

And that's the center of the biggest issue for me--once again, we have all significant women characters ending up fridged or holding the short end of the stick. And Paul who I'd assumed would fall from power (based on how everyone talks about this book), ends up valorized by the very people he manipulated in the first book.

I'd find his fear of other futures more convincing if the text gave us more solidity and detail about those futures, but most of it is kept rather vague, and the only points that are expanded are the more personal, AU fates of Chani and their children. I'm just a little ?????

Like, what's the take, here? Poor Paul, he couldn't help but do an intergalactic genocide?

And to be clear--I was completely prepared and ready to witness some Shakespearean-level tragedy. I was not expecting a happy ending for anyone. But the sad ending I got was so disappointing, and there was no justice in it re: Paul, the empire, or the Fremen people. By the way this is talked about, I was expecting some fire post-colonial or anti-imperial commentary, and I was just underwhelmed on that front.

Duncan Idaho (Alia plot points WILDLY aside) was the main high point. That was interesting, and his coming back to himself was cool. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Death, Drug abuse, Genocide, Incest, Infertility, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Sexism, Suicide, Violence, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Colonisation

infinite_harness9030's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Infertility, Suicide, Violence, Xenophobia, Grief, Murder, and War

Minor: Addiction, Body horror, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Self harm, Slavery, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Colonisation