Reviews with content warning for Rape - Daughters of Jubilation

Reviews tagging 'Rape'

Daughters of Jubilation by Kara Lee Corthron

9 reviews

callme_tippy's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense 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

2.75

This book is very well written with a great fleshed out cast that has very distinct voices.
I really enjoyed the main character as well as all the supporting characters. I enjoyed seeing all the side character interactions in addition to the main plot. I loved everything about this book except for the ending.

I saw no need fo the second rape at the end, and also the death of Clay, it just seemed completely unnecessary

Basically I feel like ending was traumatic just for the sake of being traumatic with no other reason for it.

I would have given this 5 stars if not for the ending.

Content Warnings

aria_ac's review against another edition

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dark emotional inspiring 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? It's complicated

5.0

Content Warnings

b_anamated's review against another edition

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dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad tense 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? No

4.5

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diyashasen's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

1.25

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sweetmusic22's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense 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

5.0

This book was powerful and I hope it gets a TV show adaptation

Content Warnings

booksnbubbly7's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Content Warnings

chloejadereads's review

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dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

foxwoodpress's review

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

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

3.0

Content Warnings

porshea's review

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

A story set in Jim Crow-era South Carolina, Daughters of Jubilation is a novel equal parts magical and deeply real. In her realization of main character Evalene/Evvie, author Kara Lee Corthron has crafted a journey that provides a strong glimpse into what life in small town South Carolina was like for a Black teenage girl during the 1950s. With this in mind please note content warnings for hate speech, lynching, and rape throughout this tale.

Sixteen year old Evvie has a lot of concerns in life. She longs to go to college and become an astronomer but feels this is a dream that will never come to fruition. Her father is incarcerated and she can barely remember the last time she’s hugged him. She often has to take care of her young twin sisters and has a job watching a little white girl whose mother constantly reprimands her work across town. She’s noticing the relationships between her friends changing in ways she does not want to acknowledge while she’s also suddenly getting attention from a longtime crush. To top this all off, Evvie’s been dealing with powers her family calls “jubilation” since she was 14. These powers have recently gone in flux, surging and causing chaos each time she feels a strong emotion. One of these surges puts her in a very precarious situation at the beginning of the book where she saves a white family from a calamity that her powers cause after their racist interaction with her. The fall out from this situation not only has her lauded in the local newspaper as a hero but also brings an abuser she has no initial memory of to her doorstep. However, jubilation isn’t all trauma, when she begins dating her longtime crush, Clayton, her abilities provide them with literal rainbows and opportunities to connect with family on a deeper level.

This is a powerful story about the role of family in shaping our paths. In Daughters of Jubilation, Evvie’s mother talks about not wanting her daughter to go do a similar journey that she and her own mother have been through without giving any elaboration until Evvie has gone through perils of her own. This dynamic between Evvie, her mother, and grandmother — and even between Clayton and his father — is very relatable to the experiences of my friends and I, who have often been warned to do as our elders say, not as they do, without full knowledge of what they’ve actually done or what they’ve learned from these mistakes. This legacy of stumbling towards adulthood, mirrored by the legacy of racism in the South, permeates the book and leads to graphic and troubling fates for some of the most empathetic characters in this tale.

Read this book if you have a heart that can weather reading about the growing pains of Black teenagers across class in Jim Crow-era South Carolina coupled with reflection on what it would mean to have special abilities to survive this time.

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