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kmhst25's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.0
Weird, poetic, disturbing, and thoughtful. Unlike any other novel I’ve ever read. Completely non-traditional.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Murder
Minor: Child death, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Sexual content, Violence, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
freshie's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Murder
adeline_rivero's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-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
5.0
Poignant read, gave me a lot of space to think for such a short read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror
Minor: Death and Murder
maeverose's review against another edition
4.0
I don’t know that I fully understood it but this book is an experience. It feels kind of like a weird nightmare or dream that leaves you feeling a bit gross and unsettled. I’m not sure if I liked it or not but I think I did? I’ll have to re read this sometime.
It’s very abstract and nothing is explained to the reader. There’s multiple povs but few of them are named and we don’t have any way of knowing how many there are or when exactly it switches to a new person. This is done intentionally. It’s very disorienting, and I was left at the end not fully knowing what I just read. My main takeaway is that people, whether human or not in this case, are not meant to spend their lives working and are meant to live for themselves. How we need connections to other people and to nature and the world around us. It’s not natural for any living thing to dedicate their entire life to work. That’s not living. And of course it also explores what it means to be human and whether AI can become human.
Definitely check content warnings. Body horror, trypophobia, and questioning of reality are the main things I would say to be aware of.
It’s very abstract and nothing is explained to the reader. There’s multiple povs but few of them are named and we don’t have any way of knowing how many there are or when exactly it switches to a new person. This is done intentionally. It’s very disorienting, and I was left at the end not fully knowing what I just read. My main takeaway is that people, whether human or not in this case, are not meant to spend their lives working and are meant to live for themselves. How we need connections to other people and to nature and the world around us. It’s not natural for any living thing to dedicate their entire life to work. That’s not living. And of course it also explores what it means to be human and whether AI can become human.
Definitely check content warnings. Body horror, trypophobia, and questioning of reality are the main things I would say to be aware of.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Murder, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
Moderate: Gore, Violence, and Blood
Graphic trypophobia descriptions. A significant theme throughout the whole book is existential questioning of reality and what makes someone human. It’s also a very abstract book and is very disorienting, with a lot of body horror (most of which isn’t exactly gory, but some is)fromtheyellowchair's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death
Moderate: Murder
Minor: Child death
directorpurry's review
challenging
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- 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
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body horror, Death, Medical content, and Murder
Minor: Violence
owenwilsonbaby's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
‘He tells me about the bridge and the woods near his childhood home, about the stream that flowed under the bridge, how they used to swim there, and a lot of other things from the place he calls Earth. He's shown me a stream that runs down in the valley. Obviously I can't leave the ship, but he's pointed it out to me from the panorama room. The stream glitters, and it runs like a silvery thought through the landscape. He put his hand on my shoulder. It was warm. A human hand. He said: 'You've lots to learn, my boy.’ An odd thing to say, seeing as how I was made a man from the start.’
I can’t lie, I was almost in tears at the end of this novel. I don’t want to be reductive about a refined and original piece of writing, but the best way I could describe it to my sister without spoilers was like an expanded version of that ‘cells within cells’ scene in Bladerunner 2049, based on Nabokov’s Pale Fire. It has so much to say about people being exploited by capitalism, to the very end, and demonstrates this by stripping characters of names, instead turning their individual narrative passages into witness statements. As such, it might be difficult for some readers to piece together plot and character threads, but I feel like once you adjust to the book’s narrative style, you get swept up in it regardless. There are so many lines of beautiful prose about humanity and the qualities and meanings of being alive, of community, connection, memory, experience and survival. It sort of feels like a novel that is inherently about climate change without ever mentioning that overtly? Or at least collective responses to it. There were so many images in this that made me want to cry. I really loved it.
I can’t lie, I was almost in tears at the end of this novel. I don’t want to be reductive about a refined and original piece of writing, but the best way I could describe it to my sister without spoilers was like an expanded version of that ‘cells within cells’ scene in Bladerunner 2049, based on Nabokov’s Pale Fire. It has so much to say about people being exploited by capitalism, to the very end, and demonstrates this by stripping characters of names, instead turning their individual narrative passages into witness statements. As such, it might be difficult for some readers to piece together plot and character threads, but I feel like once you adjust to the book’s narrative style, you get swept up in it regardless. There are so many lines of beautiful prose about humanity and the qualities and meanings of being alive, of community, connection, memory, experience and survival. It sort of feels like a novel that is inherently about climate change without ever mentioning that overtly? Or at least collective responses to it. There were so many images in this that made me want to cry. I really loved it.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Grief, and Murder
radtj's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Racism, and Murder
stardustdreamer's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Suicide
Moderate: Body horror, Genocide, Blood, and Murder
vessel's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
It's very clear from early on that the author is a poet. The book is built from interviews with a number of anonymous characters, and these interviews very much read like prose poems.
With a purposely murky and unclear timeline outlined by unreliable narrator after unreliable narrator, the story leaves the reader to fill in the gaps left out by the characters' confessions. It could be a frustrating reading experience for those looking for clearly defined characters and a classic plot arc with clearly delineated beats, but The Employees is more of a poetic exploration of the meaning of "humanity", and definitely more of a mood piece. It left me with a profound sense of sadness, and many lines I still think about regularly.
With a purposely murky and unclear timeline outlined by unreliable narrator after unreliable narrator, the story leaves the reader to fill in the gaps left out by the characters' confessions. It could be a frustrating reading experience for those looking for clearly defined characters and a classic plot arc with clearly delineated beats, but The Employees is more of a poetic exploration of the meaning of "humanity", and definitely more of a mood piece. It left me with a profound sense of sadness, and many lines I still think about regularly.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death
Minor: Mental illness and Murder