Scan barcode
kelisabeth's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Incest, Infertility, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Trafficking, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
thequiltyreader's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
It was compelling, it was emotional, it was thoroughly frightening. Not only what was common practice in the time period in which they travelled to but the fact it didn't take long for them to slip into the expected roles of the time, albeit that would have somewhat been because of human instinct to survive.
Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Grief, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Deportation
charliebites's review against another edition
- 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
4.5
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Vomit, Suicide attempt, Abandonment, and Classism
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, and Fire/Fire injury
mromie's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
We do not live in a time so far removed from systems and acts of oppression, violence, sexual torture, and racism as many would prefer to believe. With the blurring of time through time travel, Butler reminds us that the time from enslavement period was only few generations before us and could have been us too. To this day, enslavement exists in parts of the world, in places of war, and in renamed forms in America.
Robert Crossley’s Reader’s Guide had insightful comments, including:
- Butler: Science fiction has long treated people who might or might not exist — ETs. Unfortunately, however, many of the same science-fiction writers who started us thinking about the possibility of extraterrestrial life did nothing to make us think about here-at-home human variation”
- Butler “has redrawn science fiction’s cultural boundaries…deployed the genre’s conventions to tell stories with a political and sociological edge to them, stories that speak to issues, feelings, and historical truths arising out of African-American experience. In centering her fiction on women who lack power and suffer abuse but are committed to claiming power over their own lives and to exercising that power harshly when necessary, Butler has not merely used science fiction as a “feminist didactic,” in Beverly Friend’s terminology, but she has generated her fiction out of a black feminist aesthetic.”
- time travel as a metaphor and medium; “traveling to the past is a dramatic means to make the past live, to get the reader to live imaginatively, in the recreated past, to grasp it as a felt reality rather than merely a learned abstraction”
- Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a metaphor for the exclusion of women from acts of creation
- subtle parallels between Rufus Weylin and Kevin Franklin, system of white supremacist culture
- first hand narratives of enslavement vs Hollywood retellings and novels that sanitize or glamorize it
- Kindred as the title, literary kinship with the memoirs of formerly enslaved peoples, “chained to her ancestral past by the genealogical link that requires her to keep the oppressive slave master alive until her own family is initiated”
Graphic: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual violence, Violence, Murder, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
nialiversuch's review against another edition
- 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
3.5
Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Rape, Sexual assault, Religious bigotry, and Pregnancy
kriee's review against another edition
- 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? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Vomit, Grief, Suicide attempt, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Body horror, Child death, Domestic abuse, Miscarriage, Blood, Medical trauma, and Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Abandonment
whatthestina's review against another edition
- 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
3.5
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship