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scifi_rat's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
3.5
Graphic: Kidnapping
Moderate: Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Self harm, Torture, Violence, Vomit, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Toxic friendship, War, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Minor: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Grief, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail
avilareads's review against another edition
- 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
3.75
if i read the next book it will be because i’m fascinated by the fucked up, love-hate, complicated relationship dynamic between elu and akavi.
Graphic: Confinement, Death, and Genocide
Moderate: Ableism, Self harm, Torture, and Violence
talonsontypewriters's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Panic attacks/disorders, Torture, Violence, Kidnapping, and Murder
Moderate: Ableism, Genocide, Gun violence, Self harm, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Child abuse, Vomit, Stalking, and War
wardenred's review against another edition
- 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
To fight a lie, you didn’t have to use guns. Just the truth.
Wow. This was an amazing wild ride, and I'm so happy to learn there's a sequel—I need to get it ASAP, because while the story doesn't feel unfinished, there's a definite set-up for powerful things to come.
The characters here are simply brilliant. All the humans are wonderfully human. All the angels... well, let's say I loved to hate every single one of them, for different reasons. My favorite part, though, was the worldbuilding. The book is as lovecraftian as the cover promises, and all the eldritch horrors are as beautifully weird and terrifying as they should be. However, they're far from the most terrifying thing in this book. Compared to what some of the characters get up to while combating them, the eldritch horrors are downright comforting, and that's probably the most impactful part of the story for me. I'll refrain from elaborating on it, because that would mean sharing way too many spoilers. I'll just go back to talking about the setting. The entire thing with humanity creating its own gods by experimenting with AI and then making their continued existence and nearly unlimited power possible by simply agreeing with it? There's so much here that resonates deeply with my currently frequent thoughts of power structures and shared responsibility and how blurry the lines get sometimes between victims and accomplices—perhaps even victims, accomplices, and culprits. I also find it so important that in this world of gods and monsters, it's the most human choices that make the biggest difference.
The book was structured neatly, too, with epigraphs from in-universe books, journals, and documents before each chapter embedding some important details with little explanations first, and then the narrative itself picked up those threads and spun them into a wider picture. The genre-appropriate tension held up nicely throughout the whole story, although I'll admit there were a few hiccups near the middle, pacing-wise. I also suspect that some parts of the setting and plot may have gone over my head a bit because I'm very much not an expert on quantum physics. However, none of that retracted from the enjoyment I got from this novel. I guess my overall rating for it lies somewhere between 4.75 and 5 stars. I'll round it up.
Oh, and I finish with the obligatory mention of this being a totally queernorm world, which I'm always here for. I also enjoyed the representation of neurodiversity and following a queer autistic heroine whose arc isn't about being queer or autistic, although those parts of her character definitely inform a lot of her journey.
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Self harm, Torture, Violence, and Kidnapping
Moderate: Ableism and War
Minor: Forced institutionalization
ailsaod's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
Moderate: Confinement, Mental illness, Torture, Police brutality, and Kidnapping
Minor: Genocide
carbinara's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
One thing I particularly liked was how the book was written; often sci-fi can get a little difficult to keep up with, but it wasn’t an issue in this book. I know thats a personal preference, but I appreciated it.
Another thing about how it’s written is that the protagonist, Yasira, isn’t hugely emotional except for one scene where she lands on Jai, and throughout the ending. I found this made the scenes where she was emotional so much more impactful, especially the scene where she lands on Jai, as she is the most openly emotional then. This links to her autism, and I really love how her autism is written. For example, how in the start the book mentions about different fabrics and how those effect her, and how she repeatedly refers to Tiv as a ‘good girl.’ It also helps to empathise with her being shoved into this entirely new situation/environment.
I also really enjoyed the characters of Akavi, Elu and Enga. It’s easy for the Gods to be detached and uncaring towards humans, as we see that they hardly even communicate with the angels beneath them. However, we see the angels do have contact with these people (and once were them),
Dr Talirr is a hard character to get a grip of, which I think makes sense since it seems like
Another thing I really loved about this book was the imagination. This book had alien spiders, a spaceship which was alive (as in flesh and blood, not AI), and the descriptions of the Outside’s effects were always absurd in the best way.
Overall, I really liked this book :)
Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Torture, and Kidnapping
Minor: Confinement and Genocide
evilscientist's review against another edition
- 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? Yes
5.0
-yasira was an interesting main character, i liked her. i almost never see books with autistic protagonists. AND to see her interact with an autistic mentor as well was good
-acavi was also a very interesting antagonist. he was clearly not a good person but the narrative managed to make him somewhat sympathetic. also i loved the genderfluid coding
-it was a slow start but the rest of the book hooked me enough that i kept wanting to come back to it, so i finished it very quickly lol
-i didn’t like some parts of the eldritch horror stuff. it’s a thing that’s very difficult to write well and it didn’t hit the mark for me
-also i felt like tiv’s character was kind of flat which annoyed me because i wanted to like her
-finally as a trans person it stuck out to me that the author tried to use trans-inclusive language in some parts but didn’t really consider trans people ever. the only trans character i remember is a non-human nonbinary minor antagonist. didn’t love that
-overall i really enjoyed this book. mind the content warnings though
-also i looked on tumblr and didn’t see ANY fanart for the book. this is a crime
-also i’m still thinking about the worldbuilding. just the idea of having these incredible AIs and choosing to call them gods and their cyborg servants are called angels. love it
Graphic: Torture and Kidnapping
Moderate: Ableism, Body horror, Genocide, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail
st_ender's review against another edition
- 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? It's complicated
4.5
To be fair I didn't really care for the technical stuff. I was in it for the world building and therefore I cannot tell you much about whether the science part checks out or makes sense.
There was a part where the tempo slowed down a bit and then sped up again at the end which was a bit of a rough patch but it's quite common in debuts and still didn't really matter on a big scale. Bought the sequel immediately and have big hopes for my boy Akavi (sorry).
Graphic: Death, Genocide, Panic attacks/disorders, Torture, and Murder
Moderate: Ableism and Body horror
sarah984's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
I wouldn't call most of the characters "likable" per se, but they were interesting and dynamic. (Though unfortunately I found the love interest kind of bland) The horrors that Yasira comes into contact with are described in an engaging way and it’s interesting to see her thought process changing over time.
Graphic: Confinement and Kidnapping
Moderate: Ableism, Child abuse, Death, Gun violence, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
Minor: Animal death, Body horror, Genocide, and Stalking