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marmaladereads's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
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? It's complicated
3.5
This book is 50% vibes, set in a dystopian futuristic city that is run by crime syndicates with extreme income inequality and in a post climate catastrophe world where most world governments have collapsed. The book follows 5ish seemingly unrelated characters and their varied perspectives of the city - some are rich, poor, criminals, government workers. Most of the characters are queer, and the book is incredibly queer normative despite taking place with a background of a sexually transmitted and fatal pandemic reminiscent of HIV (which the government ignores). So the setting is incredibly interesting and the vibes and atmosphere established dominate the book.
However the plot is quite thin. It took probably 60% of the book for the plot to truly emerge, and when it did finally all come together, I found it somewhat underwhelming. Characters that were pretty interesting as individuals in earlier chapters kind of fell apart in terms of character depth and personality when they were thrown into group situations in later chapters, and a lot of the relationships lacked the emotional charge that should have come with long awaited reunions and the revelations that came with them. A lot of the big mysteries set up throughout the book also fell kind of flat for me when they were finally revealed.
Overall I would rate this book 5 stars for vibes and 2 stars for plot.
However the plot is quite thin. It took probably 60% of the book for the plot to truly emerge, and when it did finally all come together, I found it somewhat underwhelming. Characters that were pretty interesting as individuals in earlier chapters kind of fell apart in terms of character depth and personality when they were thrown into group situations in later chapters, and a lot of the relationships lacked the emotional charge that should have come with long awaited reunions and the revelations that came with them. A lot of the big mysteries set up throughout the book also fell kind of flat for me when they were finally revealed.
Overall I would rate this book 5 stars for vibes and 2 stars for plot.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Police brutality, Abandonment, and Deportation
julian7's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
I liked the concepts in this book (like nanobonding with animals and how the breaks result in sharing memories) a lot more than the actual book. The world-building felt underdeveloped - there were a lot of cool concepts, but perhaps too many to take on in one book, because they were often not explained very well. Also, it took forever for all the different characters and threads to come together. I didn’t feel like I knew what was going on until about a third of the way through, and even then I was still confused about the logistics of some things, like nanobonding and the breaks.
Meanwhile, the anticapitalist messages felt over-explained. Sometimes, I feel like the “message” or moral of the story is too hard to figure out, but with this book I actually felt like it was way too easy because the author would explicitly say it many times throughout the book. That being said, I still really appreciate the anticapitalist messaging. 🫡
Another thing that was underdeveloped was the relationships between the characters. A lot of the characters had potential to feel more interesting and relatable had they been more developed.
All in all, super interesting concepts and a lot of potential for an interesting world and characters, but not enough development and depth, because of the massive amount taken on. Overall, 3/5 score. Also, THE COVER GLOWS IN THE DARK so that’s pretty fucking cool.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Genocide, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, Colonisation, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic
salty_morton's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Very interesting and deep world created by the author. It's slowly explored and fleshed out through the cast of characters.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Genocide, and Blood
Moderate: Forced institutionalization
nodogsonthemoon's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
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? It's complicated
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, Mental illness, Terminal illness, Violence, and Blood
Moderate: Animal death, Genocide, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, and Abandonment
booksthatburn's review against another edition
adventurous
reflective
sad
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
3.0
BLACKFISH CITY feels like post-apocalyptic cyberpunk (or maybe seapunk?), where it's been long enough after the destruction of significant portions of civilization that people have had time to rebuild, but nothing is as it was, and even less is as people would wish it to be.
The worldbuilding is great, with a backstory for the place itself which is told gradually throughout the narrative. There's an A.I. running everything, actually there are a lot of A.I.'s running things, and things are going about as well as they can when somebody a while ago built a nearly unaccountable system, put it on autopilot, and stopped claiming any active responsibility (i.e. badly). There are housing issues, xenophobia, immigration, and an illness spreading through the city that the authorities will neither acknowledge nor treat, but it's definitely present. Suddenly a woman shows up with an orca and a polar bear and her presence consumes the city in totally believable way. All of this is told through a rotation of protagonists from different circumstances who are seemingly unconnected. It's an interesting idea fleshed out into an excellent setting in which to place the characters. That's where it starts getting strange for me. The mysterious orcamancer woman was fascinating... until we actually meet her. Soq was really cool and made a ton of sense, with clear goals and understandable motivations... until they find out some of their personal history and start having unexplained goals that seemed to come out of nowhere. I'm not upset that the seemingly unconnected narrators turned out to actually be connected, that's a common trope which helps the narrative hang together so that they interact with the plot. That being said, I wasn't expecting them to be quite so connected. It took something that felt big and epic, people coming together as strangers to do something for the city and each other, and turned it into something much more dense and coincidental. Neither is bad, necessarily, but it meant I spent 70%-80% of the time thinking I was reading one kind of story before it suddenly changed to the other. Rather than feeling intimate it suddenly felt petty, at least for me.
There’s a moment where Soq, the nonbinary character, is implied to be intersex, but it’s conveyed briefly in a scene where a sexual partner is confused by their genitals (not described). Up until that scene they’d been pretty effortlessly and adeptly handled as a nonbinary character (with little explanatory moments but nothing that took me out of a scene), and then this encounter happens. Being intersex, if that’s what was meant, is distinct from being nonbinary. While it’s more than possible for someone to be both, it felt like their evidently intersex anatomy was offered as an explanation for their nonbinary identity in a way that was frustrating to read. They push back against the comment and correct the person, but it didn’t need to be in the story, just a bit of pointless interphobia.
The worldbuilding is great, with a backstory for the place itself which is told gradually throughout the narrative. There's an A.I. running everything, actually there are a lot of A.I.'s running things, and things are going about as well as they can when somebody a while ago built a nearly unaccountable system, put it on autopilot, and stopped claiming any active responsibility (i.e. badly). There are housing issues, xenophobia, immigration, and an illness spreading through the city that the authorities will neither acknowledge nor treat, but it's definitely present. Suddenly a woman shows up with an orca and a polar bear and her presence consumes the city in totally believable way. All of this is told through a rotation of protagonists from different circumstances who are seemingly unconnected. It's an interesting idea fleshed out into an excellent setting in which to place the characters. That's where it starts getting strange for me. The mysterious orcamancer woman was fascinating... until we actually meet her. Soq was really cool and made a ton of sense, with clear goals and understandable motivations... until they find out some of their personal history and start having unexplained goals that seemed to come out of nowhere. I'm not upset that the seemingly unconnected narrators turned out to actually be connected, that's a common trope which helps the narrative hang together so that they interact with the plot. That being said, I wasn't expecting them to be quite so connected. It took something that felt big and epic, people coming together as strangers to do something for the city and each other, and turned it into something much more dense and coincidental. Neither is bad, necessarily, but it meant I spent 70%-80% of the time thinking I was reading one kind of story before it suddenly changed to the other. Rather than feeling intimate it suddenly felt petty, at least for me.
There’s a moment where Soq, the nonbinary character, is implied to be intersex, but it’s conveyed briefly in a scene where a sexual partner is confused by their genitals (not described). Up until that scene they’d been pretty effortlessly and adeptly handled as a nonbinary character (with little explanatory moments but nothing that took me out of a scene), and then this encounter happens. Being intersex, if that’s what was meant, is distinct from being nonbinary. While it’s more than possible for someone to be both, it felt like their evidently intersex anatomy was offered as an explanation for their nonbinary identity in a way that was frustrating to read. They push back against the comment and correct the person, but it didn’t need to be in the story, just a bit of pointless interphobia.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, and Blood
Moderate: Ableism, Death, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Forced institutionalization, Vomit, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol
Minor: Genocide, Misogyny, Self harm, and Sexism
kipiekie's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death and Genocide
Moderate: Mental illness and Violence
sweetpotatofries's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide and Forced institutionalization
Moderate: Mental illness and Murder
Minor: Homophobia and Transphobia
jennyung's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
This book did not pick up until about a third of the way through. After that, the characters’ storylines begin to converge in clever ways. The world building is exquisite and imaginative but is sometimes too text-heavy and academic. I enjoyed Soq and Kaev’s characters the most and hated Fill.
Content Warnings
Minor: Death, Genocide, Gore, Mental illness, and Grief
achillea's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
aksjkfjsaxewp??? ksjadiedw!! wakjfeopsx
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood
Moderate: Animal death, Death, Genocide, Forced institutionalization, and Xenophobia
aardwyrm's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Climate change dystopia in which horrible things happen endlessly, but the ultimate choice is hope. The world of Blackfish City is a world that has ended and is beginning to make itself again. The book rejects all easy answers but still loops back to the possibility of a better future. Its patchwork of viewpoints and intertwined themes of family and choice are powerfully executed and throw the reader into the City Without a Map.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Chronic illness, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Trafficking, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, and Murder