Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'

Persephone Station by Stina Leicht

17 reviews

kw_masters's review against another edition

adventurous funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Space opera, Good, fast paced, plot driven, potentially Cozy leaning — The stakes never feel too high, although it doesn’t give off enough warm fuzzies for actual cozy. 

I would probably put it in the 3.5-3.75 star range. I liked it and enjoyed it, but it’s not something I will come back to again and again. The characters are lovable, but pretty surface level in the sense that I connected with them without getting deeply attached. 

It brings up intriguing ideas of AI and how “they” impact our geopolitical systems, psychology and sociology.

The only negative thing, and it’s small, is that the author wanted to be so inclusive that the language/description felt forced, almost manufactured rather than the natural flow of the story. It was obviously meant well just not well executed! The pronouns, physical descriptions, sexual orientation were all there - spelling it out seemed to be written for a less intuitive audience. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Animal death, Chronic illness, Death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Terminal illness, Violence, Colonisation, and War

Trigger warnings are extremely minor!!!!! Things are present, but not descriptive

talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

slow-paced

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

1.0

HOW do you take these concepts and write something as boring as this. also genuinely some of the weakest prose I've ever read, please god combine some of those clauses

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Animal death, Chronic illness, Gore, Terminal illness, Torture, Blood, Grief, and Colonisation

Minor: Suicide, Trafficking, Death of parent, Alcohol, and Pandemic/Epidemic

ladydamonayde's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful mysterious tense slow-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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Violence, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Terminal illness

ahkrin's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Gun violence, Terminal illness, Blood, Medical content, Car accident, Murder, and Colonisation

Moderate: Animal death, Death, Violence, and Kidnapping

Minor: Cursing, Gore, Trafficking, Grief, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

erebus53's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark slow-paced

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

2.5

I wanted to like this. This was a book I picked up for Thick Book club and *deep sigh*. It seems to have been written with enthusiasm, but little grasp on science. It comes across as not quite sci-fi, not quite space opera. The dialogue should carry it but it's clunky.

I did like the queernorm setting and the fact that there is ethnic and gender diversity. One or two of the main characters are NB, and that's cool.. but the author manages to mashup sex and gender in some situations where they aren't interchangeable, and it just comes across as trying hard, but not quite pulling it off.

The Audiobook narrator has a few things to work with that often challenge readers. Apart from trying to pull off an international boarding school accent, there are names and words from Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and Russian, and Maria Liatis shows very clearly that she is only familiar with English and Spanish.

I guess I just don't know how a book like this gets published with so many errors still in it, and then gets the funding for an Audio version? I found it so ungripping that I literally fell asleep listening to it several times. Grammatical errors abound, idioms are mangled in ways that do not seem deliberate, simile was wielded with the deft precision of an enthusiastic toddler... but I feel like I'm being too mean. I shouldn't take out my own reluctance to abandon a book I'm not enjoying, on the author. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence

Moderate: Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Sexual content

sophiesmallhands's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Chronic illness, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Terminal illness, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail

beccaand's review against another edition

adventurous tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, and Violence

Moderate: Chronic illness, Medical content, Colonisation, and War

Minor: Genocide and Alcohol

scifi_rat's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.25

Plot: 3 stars
Prose: 2.5 stars
Pace: 2 stars
Concept/Execution: 3.5 stars/1 stars
Characters: 2 stars
Worldbuilding: 3 stars
Ending: .5 stars

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Racism, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Genocide, and Alcohol

typedtruths's review against another edition

challenging funny slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence and Violence

Moderate: Animal death, Death, Gore, Terminal illness, Blood, Kidnapping, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Grief

➸ Trigger warnings for blood and gore depiction, physical injuries and illness including terminal illness, coma, grief and loss depiction, death of a friend (off-page), death of a partner mentioned, military violence and battle scenes, organised crime mentioned, gun violence, kidnapping, explosions, plane crash, animal attack, and animal death.

avocadotoastbee's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.5

I don't read that many science fiction books set in space, but I wanted to read Persephone Station by Stina Leicht because it was advertised as a "queer space opera."
(And as a queer person, I will definitely consume any queer media that is advertised to me.)
The main characters are all women and/or queer. While I liked this and expected it, it felt forced at times. Why can't gender queer people exist as naturally as cis people?!
That being said, I did like the plot.
Criminals against a large corporation to save a planet inhabited by indigenous people and other subplots.

Despite the amazing concept, the execution was lacking. The world building, in particular, needs some work. And as other reviewers have noted: Stina Leicht needs to use synonyms for the word "said".
I expected more and was disappointed after reading Persephone Station.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gun violence, and Colonisation