Reviews tagging 'Racism'

In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick

16 reviews

annenichols's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark sad tense slow-paced

3.0

START READING AT CHAPTER 1 - THE PROLOGUE/FORWARD IS SPOILER AFTER SPOILER.
A decent adventure story marred by blatant racism. I couldn't believe the date of publication; thought it had to be decades earlier. Author: just because the journals contained racism doesn't mean you have to transcribe them verbatim or accept their worldview. Paraphrasing, "The blacks

died first because they had lower body fat

??? Disgusting.
Similarly, there was insufficient editorializing of the xenophobic

decision not to aim for nearby islands

. Way too many uninhibited references to "savages."
Unrelatedly, this like many similar books included some extraneous details, especially at the end, that didn't contribute much.
Overall, disappointing. Could have been so good.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism and Xenophobia

ska1224's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

informative read on the crew of the Essex as well as Nantucket life in the early 1800s, whaling life, and other events pertaining to what happened to the crew

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Mental illness, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Cannibalism, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

nicolecoyle's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark informative sad tense slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, and Cannibalism

Moderate: Mental illness, Racism, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Slavery and Fire/Fire injury

amarnareads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism and Cannibalism

maya_moksha's review against another edition

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Confinement, Death, Racism, Blood, Cannibalism, and Injury/Injury detail

keepsleep's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Cannibalism

Moderate: Death, Racism, Blood, Medical content, and Classism

dorothygrace's review against another edition

adventurous emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Racism, Suicidal thoughts, and Colonisation

snowdropwhiskey's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

5.0

This isn’t the type of book I normally read, but I was greatly intrigued by it. This book was incredibly interesting, amazingly well written, and I’ve been thinking about it for months after reading it. There are lots of tangents in the book, but these tangents are in themselves interesting to hear about. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror

Moderate: Death, Eating disorder, Gore, Racism, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

bbbarttt's review against another edition

dark informative sad tense medium-paced

3.5

Even grimmer than I expected.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Medical content, and Cannibalism

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Racism

Minor: Dementia

melissacushman's review against another edition

adventurous dark informative medium-paced

4.5

Excellent, we’ll researched tale of old Nantucket, whaling, the shipwreck that inspired Melville to write Moby Dick, and the sailors’ struggle to stay alive in tiny boats with little food or fresh water for months. The parts about killing and butcher the whales at Galapagos tortoises were a bit hard to take though 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Racism, and Cannibalism