Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

Borne by Jeff VanderMeer

8 reviews

diana_blackmoon's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

In this crazy story about big bear, I was amazed to find such a compelling story. About motherhood, love, hope, betrayal and what it means to be a person. It is gruesome and terrifying but also beautiful and hopefull. The narration style takes a minute to get used to but was the best possible choice for this book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Child abuse, Death of parent, Torture, Grief, Animal death, Blood, Terminal illness, Physical abuse, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, and Child death

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Grief, Excrement, Drug use, and Confinement

crowcore's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug abuse, Mental illness, Addiction, Body horror, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Chronic illness, Drug use, and Violence

Moderate: Trafficking, Toxic relationship, and Toxic friendship

readingrainbowroad's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious reflective tense medium-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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Drug use and Violence

Minor: Sexual content and Addiction

troisha's review against another edition

adventurous 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Violence, and Death

Moderate: Alcohol, Blood, Chronic illness, Child death, Drug use, Excrement, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Torture

Minor: Animal death, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Rape, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, and Xenophobia

grvhppr's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• 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

First off, I loved this piece. It’s my first VanderMeer work, and it couldn’t have been a better choice. 

Overall, the pace of the book felt pleasantly slow—especially during the early years with Borne. It gave the sense that we lived the childhood years of Borne alongside Rachel. That by the time

Borne must leave home the story could skip some time and the reader could feel the weariness of living the life of a scavenger on the run. The cute Borne days were long gone by this point.

 

This book questions what it means to be a person. We the reader must determine if this means to be human, to be ethical, to be flawed, to be alive, etc. The question is vast and wraps the story like a blanket.

Can Borne still be a person if he’s a murderer? Can Rachel?

On the surface the tech was fun.

Memory beetles, alcohol minnows, fire-breathing venomous bears, cloaking garb, and more. Having their survival based around scavenging biotechnology added a wonderful sci-fi element to the story.

 

Thinking back, this story feels sadder than how I felt during the listen. The bond between the trio is unique and how it unfolds while could predicted with some thought doesn’t take away from the sense of loss. Not necessarily in lives but in just… life. Borne, the book, is full of destruction—ceaseless. The characters are all made of strong stuff to be able to function in a world such as ‘The City’. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Violence, Animal death, Body horror, and Death

Moderate: Alcohol, Blood, and Sexual content

Minor: Addiction, Suicidal thoughts, Drug abuse, Chronic illness, and Drug use

kbergsten's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective fast-paced

• 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, and Drug use

readingrainbot's review

adventurous challenging dark inspiring tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, Body horror, Drug use, Grief, and Animal cruelty

carmexfiend's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This was recommended to me as a "woman raises [alien] kid" story so I was a little skeptical if I would like it but I loved it a lot. While raising a non-human person is an important part of the story, I think the main threads throughout the book is grief, regret, memory and how people live and thrive despite hardships and trauma. There's an established (het) main relationship that is also a major part of the story since you're watching these two characters conflict and support each other throughout. The main character is telling the story to the reader, but she sometimes keeps information back and reveals it later. This gave it a more natural feel despite the very weird world and I think this lends itself to future re-reads.

The story itself is about a woman named Rachel who survives in a post-apocalyptic world filled with cybernetic tech animals ("biotech" - it reminded me of the tech in the movie eXistenZ (1999) though less body-horrory). She lives with her business/love partner, Wick, and scavenges tech for him. One day she finds a piece of tech he doesn't recognize and she eventually ends up raising it as "Borne". Borne isn't human, doesn't have human limitations, and doesn't think quite like a human and this leads to a lot of the conflict between the three characters. Without getting into spoilers, I'd say the book deals a lot with grief but is hopeful overall. It really captures that feeling of "I wish I could have done that differently" that you remember someone who has passed away. Rachel has a lot of trauma in her past and the present day isn't much kinder to her but the book never felt like a trauma-fest. In the end, I really loved the writing, the world, and the characters.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Torture, Death, Grief, and Child death

Minor: Animal death, Death of parent, Sexual content, and Drug use

There is a torture scene fairly early in the book. It's not graphically described but it does go on for a few paragraphs. The world is also built on medical and animal experimentation. We don't see anything graphic, but animals and humans (including children) being modified/created in a lab is the basis of the biotech.