Reviews with content warning for Animal death - Gleanings

Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Gleanings by Neal Shusterman

19 reviews

booksanna's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring reflective 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? No

5.0

As expected of Neal Shusterman, I was not disappointed when I read this book. Actually I was pleasantly surprised (since I don’t usually read short-stories, because of how I enjoyed the book). At first I thought my attachment to previous characters in the series would make me less excited about this book, but I was proven wrong. I really enjoyed these collections of stories. Some made my mind fill with constant buzz of questions. Others made shocked and in true awe. While others really made me ponder the meaning of life, death, mortality, art, respect, and right to be remembered. All of which the previous books also made me feel. I also loved how we learned a lot more of certain characters backstories

especially Scythe Goddard, his backstory made me gasp out loud. It was so cool to see the small event talked about in previous books talked about in depth in this one.

Each story was rich and filled with a meaningful messages to comment on aspects of humanity.

I especially liked the one about the town with Scythe deniers. So reflective of some people in the current world who refuse to believe something because it is a hoax, and have a closed-mind on an idea until it pertains to their life

The different human features of nature made me really question what it is to have control, and what it is to feel complete. I loved all these stories, and my only complaint was that I wish Shusterman had written more. But alas, quality over quantity. I would rather get 10 exceptional stories, than 30 mediocre ones.

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bookcaptivated's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional fast-paced

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

4.0

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thebookkeepers's review against another edition

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adventurous dark fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.5

What a fun addition to the Arc of a Scythe series. I love how we get a mix of historical stories as well as futuristic ones to where the original series left off at. The Martian Minute was a solid favorite, but I enjoyed the majority of these short stories!

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voidycat's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-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

4.25

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ravensandlace's review against another edition

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adventurous

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

3.0

tw: pet death, death, bullying, infidelity, explosions, terrorism

One of my favorite series, which I really don’t talk about enough, is the Arc of the Scythe. It has everything to make a perfect dystopian series. I love everything about the books. But one thing I had wished for while I read the books was some sort of lore book since the world is so massive and there is a lot of history that is incredibly interesting. While this wasn’t a lore book per se, I did gain more insight into the world and how it was created.

So this is a collection of short stories. Originally, I was going to review each short story but some were only five pages and I didn’t have a lot of thoughts on them, just a couple sentences here and there. So I think with this review, I’m just going to talk about the ones that made an impact on me or the ones I liked the most.

Formidable

This one was one of my favorites. It involved Scythes Michael Faraday and Marie Curie. This was when they were both young scythes and a certain event that is mentioned in the original trilogy. I enjoyed the brief history of the two scythes considering how important they were in the trilogy, as I mentioned above. Overall, this was a good one.

Unsavory Row

This one was more about unsavories. For those that don’t know, unsavories are people who the Thunderhead deems naughty. There are different levels to being an unsavory and it depends on what you do and how much trouble you get into. In this story, we get to see the aftermath of when a person’s family member gets gleaned and decides to become unsavory. I enjoyed the different viewpoint since, in the original series, we don’t interact a lot with unsavories. I learned a lot about a different part of the world.

A Martian Minute

This particular story had a profound effect on me and out of all the stories, this is the one I remembered the best. I won’t say much because it’s a massive spoiler for one of the books in the series but let’s just say, after I read this story, I had to sit and just breathe for a minute and I’m sure you will too.

Perchance to Glean

This one was probably the most unusual out of the group of stories. The setting was set in Antarctica and there was this concept of dreams. At first, I was unsure of how these dreamscapes worked but after a while, it made sense. Think of the movie Inception. It worked kind of like that or at least that’s how I figured it worked. There was some Nightmare on Elm Street inspiration since Scythes could glean you in the dream world and you would actually be gleaned in the real world. A fascinating story.

Overall, this was a wonderful collection of stories. It added more depth to the Scythedom. I also appreciated the different authors who contributed. I do wish this had been more of a lore book. It would have been nice to read the story of how the Thunderhead came to be, how everything progressed, etc. But overall, I truly did enjoy this book and it’s certainly a must read for anyone who enjoyed the Scythedom books.

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dododenise's review

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dark mysterious reflective fast-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

4.25

I adore the arc of the scythe so much. The world building is everything I ever wanted. It was a pleasure to jump back into this world.

Some of the stories were mind blowing, absolutely wild, shocking in their magnitude to the story. I was surprised how relevant some of them were to what was already known from the trilogy. They deserve five stars.
Other stories were a smaller scale. New characters with events I wasn’t familiar with. Frankly, it was harder to care. They were fine, fun, but nothing remarkable and I’ve forgotten about some of them already.

I leave these stories wanting to reread the arc of the scythe trilogy. It made me realise how much I’ve forgotten over the years and made me remember again how glorious that story was.

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micaelamariem's review against another edition

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dark mysterious fast-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? No

4.0

I am not usually a short story girlie but I enjoyed these! It was nice to dive back into the world of the scythed on and even find out what happened to some of the characters 👀

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kimtazo's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny mysterious fast-paced

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

4.75

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caity_reviews_books's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny medium-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

4.5

I really loved the majority of the short stories, although I didn't like a couple of the. The highs are as good as the original trilogy.

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mburnsides's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Each story took a part of the established world and elaborated on it in a way that not only gives insight into specific experiences of different characters, but allows the authors to expand on the worldbuilding. The themes of each story were nicely integrated and felt realistic. The individual authors did a great job at combining their writing style with their story's theme.

Personal favorites (in no particular order):
1. A Death of Many Colors
2. The Mortal Canvas
3. Anastasia’s Shadow
4. The Persistence of Memory

Least Favorites
1. The First Swing
2. A Dark Curtain Rises
3. Meet Cute and Die

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