Reviews tagging 'Genocide'

Days Without End by Sebastian Barry

12 reviews

himalayahigh's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad fast-paced

• 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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Racism, Genocide, Murder, and Violence

lolatarantula's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

I cant talk about this book for a myriad of reasons because it's a good fucking book in the same way Blood Meridian is a good book. Like, it's an amazing book but I don't think many people would enjoy this book. Anyway, look up the warnings before you read this. It isn't for everyone. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, War, Death, Rape, Sexual content, Murder, Violence, Animal death, Blood, Colonisation, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, and Racism

marxxx's review against another edition

dark reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.75

most of this book left me sitting with a weird discomfort—the narrator and his partner are both complicit in a lot of really heinous things, and violence against Black and Indigenous people abounds. but I found it informative, and found the discomfort to be something worth examining, and the end of the book made me cry. 

The writing style takes some getting used but it adds something very unique and personal to the book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Torture, Colonisation, War, Genocide, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Racial slurs, Violence, Excrement, and Gun violence

sanfordc11's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Violence, Gun violence, Colonisation, and Genocide

macaronis_telegraph's review against another edition

slow-paced

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

1.0

Format of the book is frustrating - While Barry does succeed at crafting a distinct voice for his main character, it also for some reason meant that every paragraph was multiple pages long, creating a constant wall of text on every page, allowing for an uninviting read. 

Author also fails to address in any light the horrendous parts of the past he writes about. He writes in detail his characters partaking in the repeated slaughter of Native Americans both before and after the civil war, but because the characters partaking in the murder are gay and rescue one little girl, everything is okay right? I think not.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, War, Xenophobia, Torture, Violence, Racism, Kidnapping, Colonisation, Murder, Hate crime, Cultural appropriation, and Death

shinysarah28's review

challenging emotional sad medium-paced

• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide

Moderate: War, Racial slurs, and Racism

veronicats's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad fast-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Animal death, Death, Racial slurs, Excrement, Genocide, Medical trauma, Blood, Child death, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Gore, Kidnapping, Violence, Vomit, and War

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Hate crime, Confinement, Outing, Rape, Abandonment, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Deadnaming, and Sexual assault

meggiemine's review against another edition

emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Racism, Murder, War, Genocide, Colonisation, Violence, and Death

Moderate: Gore

Minor: Excrement

lavendl's review against another edition

dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, War, Racism, Gun violence, Genocide, Death, and Colonisation

Moderate: Child death, Colonisation, Vomit, Sexual assault, Injury/Injury detail, and Grief

Minor: Alcohol and Cannibalism

dosymedia's review against another edition

challenging reflective slow-paced

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

3.75

For that lyrical prose packed with western imagery, for the choice of protagonists (Thomas McNulty, an Irish immigrant who comes to identify as a woman, and John Cole, their mixed race lover and constant companion of 20+ years), for the devastating brutality laid directly beside the sublime, I was reminded of A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara.

This is a crucible of suffering that follows the lives of career soldiers through two wars and their settling in the western frontier. That suffering is the point; its immersion uses beauty to make the inane hurt. Despite its choice of characters, those characters only underline the danger of this developing America, as each member of the queer family formed is uniquely othered and thus, at risk in certain company.

They themselves are held back from the reader. We don't come to know Thomas, John, or their adopted daughter all that well. We're thirty percent into the book before we are absolutely certain of Thomas and John's relationship, revealed unceremoniously with a kiss that is special due to its need to be hidden, and regular, since its ease implies our first witnessing of it is only one of many for them.

And I didn't mind that here, perhaps because Aidan Kelly so beautifully rendered Thomas' narration, it only felt like a quirk of Thomas' character to keep their private life from the audience. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Genocide, and Hate crime

Moderate: Animal death