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mar's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
"a sequence of unease" fuck dude it sure is. meandering yet precise, written in short, clipped sentences, this novella manages to induce a feeling of dread like very few other works i've read
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Suicide, Violence, Forced institutionalization, and Fire/Fire injury
nixmixus's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Prescient but also eerily fantastical. When faced with the twilight of fascism, how would you react?
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death
Moderate: Death and Violence
james1star's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
Kay Dick’s ‘They’ was originally published in 1977, achieving some praise but was soon pushed out of print being lost until quite recently. This fact considering the book’s focus on censorship and the meaning of artistic expression leads to thoughts. I read up that she was a bisexual intellectual and yes Kay love that, I’m intrigued to maybe check out more from her but this didn’t exactly hit the mark for me.
In ‘They’ we follow an unnamed protagonist who lives alone by the coast with a dog - in my reading I thought this person was probably a woman as people call them ‘love’ a few times and just felt they were written female if that makes sense, I also believe they change from chapter to chapter but this may not be the case - across nine chapters. Each is like a mini story in itself with multiple characters that don’t repeat but there are some recurring events just different scenarios. As the novella progresses, the reader is introduced to the various aims and methods of the group known as ‘they’ who are threatening the main characters and general population to some extent. It’s clear the thing ‘they’ dislike the most is the arts and artistic expression whereby they over time confiscate/steal/destroy works of human creativity (books, paintings, records, poems, etc), terrorise/kidnap/imprison/kill offenders and try to enact conformity onto people. Displays of emotion (e.g. grief of a lost love which is seen as the worst as it signifies the fact love has meaning), non-conformity and those who live alone are also under attack. The characters attempt to live with the fear and put their own energy into creating works as fighting back wouldn’t prove useful, but this is a hard pill to swallow.
The group called ‘Them’ are written to be anonymous and all we know is their general dislike and the fact their numbers are growing. I think this is done well as Dick doesn’t add any humanity to them or their actions, the characters know they are a present threat and don’t bother to interact with them as this’ll obviously prove fruitless. What I didn’t like that much was how were given a similar level of disconnect with the named characters in each chapter/story. There are too many, too short stories so the reader can’t experience the characters in full, so no one is memorable, less and longer chapters would have been better in my opinion. BUT I do like the ambiguity of how each ends and this is probably what Dick was going for, so I respect it and see why but still didn’t really like it if that makes sense. The questioning and leaning into the horror genre were okay but maybe needed more expansion, it’s definitely a dystopia.
The writing was okay. I appreciate it’s meant to be rather fast paced but lots of short sentences did break the text up a little too much. There’s some nice metaphors and descriptive language that’s useful in describing locations for example. The violence isn’t exactly graphic but the recurrence of animal cruelty/death is something I hate to read so Yhh, but it could have been worse.
Last point: in the final chapter, a character is only referred to as ‘the autistic child’ whilst everyone else is given a name. This irked me so much, like Dick just give him a name!!! Having autism isn’t someone’s whole personality, it just felt unnecessary and like she was using the boy’s autism to belittle him in a sense, I dunno?? This was a small part but it stuck with me.
I’m happy this was found and I would say it’s worth reading but it’s possible the impact wasn’t something I picked up on. Possibly a re-read might prove useful but we shall see.
In ‘They’ we follow an unnamed protagonist who lives alone by the coast with a dog - in my reading I thought this person was probably a woman as people call them ‘love’ a few times and just felt they were written female if that makes sense, I also believe they change from chapter to chapter but this may not be the case - across nine chapters. Each is like a mini story in itself with multiple characters that don’t repeat but there are some recurring events just different scenarios. As the novella progresses, the reader is introduced to the various aims and methods of the group known as ‘they’ who are threatening the main characters and general population to some extent. It’s clear the thing ‘they’ dislike the most is the arts and artistic expression whereby they over time confiscate/steal/destroy works of human creativity (books, paintings, records, poems, etc), terrorise/kidnap/imprison/kill offenders and try to enact conformity onto people. Displays of emotion (e.g. grief of a lost love which is seen as the worst as it signifies the fact love has meaning), non-conformity and those who live alone are also under attack. The characters attempt to live with the fear and put their own energy into creating works as fighting back wouldn’t prove useful, but this is a hard pill to swallow.
The group called ‘Them’ are written to be anonymous and all we know is their general dislike and the fact their numbers are growing. I think this is done well as Dick doesn’t add any humanity to them or their actions, the characters know they are a present threat and don’t bother to interact with them as this’ll obviously prove fruitless. What I didn’t like that much was how were given a similar level of disconnect with the named characters in each chapter/story. There are too many, too short stories so the reader can’t experience the characters in full, so no one is memorable, less and longer chapters would have been better in my opinion. BUT I do like the ambiguity of how each ends and this is probably what Dick was going for, so I respect it and see why but still didn’t really like it if that makes sense. The questioning and leaning into the horror genre were okay but maybe needed more expansion, it’s definitely a dystopia.
The writing was okay. I appreciate it’s meant to be rather fast paced but lots of short sentences did break the text up a little too much. There’s some nice metaphors and descriptive language that’s useful in describing locations for example. The violence isn’t exactly graphic but the recurrence of animal cruelty/death is something I hate to read so Yhh, but it could have been worse.
Last point: in the final chapter, a character is only referred to as ‘the autistic child’ whilst everyone else is given a name. This irked me so much, like Dick just give him a name!!! Having autism isn’t someone’s whole personality, it just felt unnecessary and like she was using the boy’s autism to belittle him in a sense, I dunno?? This was a small part but it stuck with me.
I’m happy this was found and I would say it’s worth reading but it’s possible the impact wasn’t something I picked up on. Possibly a re-read might prove useful but we shall see.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Suicide, Grief, and Fire/Fire injury
inkling's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
They is a dystopian novel that explores what life would be like if art and free thinking is seen as a crime. I found it a challenging yet interesting read. Not so much happens in it, but Kay Dick creates a tense atmosphere very well. The writing is very disjointed, for lack of a better word, and apart from the narrator the characters are new in every chapter. This made it quite confusing and unlike anything I've read before. I was very intrigued by the premise of this book, but I expected more of an exploration of who "they" are, where did they come from? How could this have happened?
It didn't quite meet my expectations, and wasn't really my thing. However it is a very short book so well worth a try! It might be just what you are looking for.
It didn't quite meet my expectations, and wasn't really my thing. However it is a very short book so well worth a try! It might be just what you are looking for.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Violence
Minor: Grief
holly_ey's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
4.0
Unusual, clever and dark. Also surprisingly uplifting in an odd way, back-handedly providing the secret to happiness and human fulfilment. Very sad that it wasn't appreciated during the author's lifetime.
Content Warnings
Minor: Animal cruelty and Violence
megan_bbender's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
This is a good book for a super quick and easy read. It was a bit disturbing at some parts but nothing goes into detail. To be honest, I never really understood what was going on because the writing is so simple. This concept is super interesting but I feel like there definitely could have been more done, I don't feel anything towards the plot or characters due to the lack of world-building.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, and Violence
Moderate: Forced institutionalization and Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Domestic abuse
lazuliz's review against another edition
dark
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
bex_knighthunter's review against another edition
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.25
My favourite part of this book was the introduction by Carmen Maria Machado… Unfortunately, this didn't work for me despite loving horror and dystopian fiction. I really struggled with the writing style, which was incredibly simple, sparse, and matter-of-fact. I struggled to get into any reading flow with this style and it left me feeling distanced from the stories. It also felt like key information was missing, leaving me me confused in many places about what was actually going on. Just in concept this was already going to be hard for me as I have historically struggled with even mosaic novels, and the concept for this was even less tied together - it was created by the author editing a selection of short stories to tie them together. The stories each featured different characters and different but similar settings, but none of the characters stood out to me and I found them easy to mix up. We never get any name or traits for the main character - it seemed likely it was all from the same perspective but I wasn't sure because we get no internal monologue or personality. I was interested in the questions this collection/novella was trying to explore around the suppression of art but I don't feel that I got much on this topic and I was left feeling I had missed the point of a few stories - I would be intrigued to read a literary analysis of this one! There was an unsettling vibe that came through the stories and some chilling small sections (e.g. a woman being told after breaking her ankle that she was being allowed to show pain for 48 hours and her using this to express all her suppressed grief, and a woman who jumps into a pond every morning because she is affected by the memory of being burned alive). I also enjoyed the small moments of absurd darkness amongst the descriptions of mundanity. I was tempted to DNF but got on slightly better when I treated this more as a short story collection and tried to read each story in one sitting.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Death
Moderate: Grief
Minor: Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail
spooderman's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
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? It's complicated
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Blood, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, and Murder
Minor: Suicide attempt and Death of parent
g_monaghan's review against another edition
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
"Destruction doesn't count. One can always create again"
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death
Minor: Violence