Reviews tagging 'Police brutality'

The Perishing by Natashia Deón

4 reviews

nehaanna's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.0

I’m not entirely sure what this book is attempting to accomplish. This is literary fiction with a speculative aspect and a fantasy-esque twist that fails to make any sense until the last 50 pages and is so poorly strung together. This book fails to draw the reader in, preferring to use complicated time jumps, stream of consciousness type writing, and sloppy philosophical waxing to make some point. Sprinkled along the way are references to historical injustices towards minority populations with reference to recent historical events of the 2020s. However, the social commentary is poorly done in my opinion. Nothing in this book seems to be executed well, everything falls abysmally short of the author’s well-meaning intentions for what this book could have been. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Alcoholism, Blood, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, War, and Pandemic/Epidemic

adiajamille's review against another edition

mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

It was fine. A lot of the language was inappropriate for the time period. It felt like they had a lot of ideas but weren’t sure how to execute them in a cohesive manner. Much of the historical events mentioned just felt thrown in   In an attempt to be impactful, but fell flat. The base idea was cool, and could’ve been great. Just needed a little more time to let the ideas simmer and flow. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Racism, Blood, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

lovealwaysadi's review against another edition

challenging emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Sexism, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Ableism, Alcoholism, Bullying, Drug use, Homophobia, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Slavery, Medical content, Pregnancy, Lesbophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and War

wrestleacademic's review against another edition

emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Child death, Racial slurs, Racism, Blood, Police brutality, and Death of parent