Reviews tagging 'Death'

The Thirty Names of Night by Zeyn Joukhadar

22 reviews

camillatd's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad 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

4.5

The Thirty Names of Night is a rich, expansive, heart-opening novel. Our (initially) unnamed narrator is grieving his mother, seeking meaning in his art, and attempting to untangle a family secret. The novel moves between two voices: the present-day narrator and the artist Laila Z, whose journal entries he uncovers. With each diary entry he reads, our narrator comes closer to understanding his mother’s life and death, but he also comes closer to understanding (and embracing) himself and his transness. Joukhadar really masterfully weaves together past and present, creating a striking narrative of family, migration, and intergenerational queerness. Both timelines and narrators felt equally crucial to the story, which I think is really hard to achieve in a novel. I felt so connected to these characters and so invested in their journeys.

While this novel contains a lot of pain (from gender dysphoria to grief to racism and xenophobia), it’s full of love and beauty. The novel is rich with symbolism, birds and ghosts and paintings and flowers and secrets, scenes that took my breath away.

This was another book that allowed me to sit in the wise grief/wise joy that I’ve been reflecting on since I read Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar: “I hope that when there is laughter, it’s laughter made wise by having known real grief—and when there if grief, it is made wise by having known real joy.”

This is a novel about community, and how caring for each other and making art is a form of resistance. Moving from Syria to New York City to Dearborn, Michigan, the story explores how community ties are enshrined in structures, but how they also transcend buildings, places, and cities. Joukhadar also crafts a moving narrative of queer resilience across time and place. The novel’s cast of predominantly queer and trans characters carve out space and community and love and family for themselves, in deeply queer and deeply beautiful ways. Queer and trans people have always been here, and we always will be.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Grief, Dysphoria, and War

Moderate: Death, Homophobia, Sexual content, Transphobia, and Fire/Fire injury

rhi_'s review against another edition

challenging emotional mysterious reflective slow-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Grief, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Dysphoria

Minor: Homophobia, Racism, Islamophobia, and Lesbophobia

zombiezami's review

emotional hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Misogyny, Sexism, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Bullying, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Police brutality, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Dementia, Mass/school shootings, Colonisation, and War

Colorism

apolloann's review against another edition

I plan to come back to this, I'm just finding it very triggering ATM. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content and Medical trauma

Moderate: Death and Grief

Only made it a few pages in before being pretty triggered by a gyno scene, which was arguably not very graphic, just full of dysphoria and discomfort and I didn't do my homework prior to starting this one to prepare myself

madzie's review against another edition

challenging emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

5.0

Joukhadar is one of the most beautiful writers I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Every word in this novel is stitched together in the most ornate tapestry. Poetic and made with gold, every sentence feels exactly like it does to breathe. Beyond the writing, this book fits together beautifully, the plot moving along like a river, with introspective characters that weave together to tell themes about life.

My favorite part of this book was how Joukhadar explores transness, gender, and queerness with beautiful insights and understandings. He boldly tells stories of how queer people have always existed and will always exist despite being silenced or staying silent for protection. With a large cast of queer characters, I love how the book deals with how other people see queerness and how it is a fight to be one’s authentic self. The nuances of how queerness is viewed in society and then in smaller relationships with friends and family is masterfully detailed as Joukhadar demonstrates how people can react to it, thinking that you owe them something, but how we have to journey to accept that we only owe it to ourselves to be authentically us. Then, Joukhadar takes this a step further to connect to the intersectionality of oppression and what the majority of society believes those they have put under them should be. Despite this, Joukhadar reminds his readers of hope and the courage of fighting for oneself, one's identity, and what one believes in. In the end, he highlights lessons, purposes, and identities that are highly important for us to consider and carry with us in our lives.

Other deep and profound themes are handled wonderfully in this novel, exploring grief and moving on, as well as how humans continue to affect one another, the appreciativeness of what we take for granted, and the beautiful connection of humanity to nature, reminding us that nothing ever truly fits into a box. All of these interact with each other to show us how magnificent life can be and how we become who we are.

I could go on and on about this novel, but the bottom line is: read it; it's stunning. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Homophobia, Transphobia, Islamophobia, Grief, Death of parent, and Dysphoria

Moderate: Hate crime, Sexism, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Sexual content

quinnyquinnquinn's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-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? It's complicated

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Islamophobia and Death of parent

Moderate: Homophobia and Transphobia

Minor: Death

siriface's review

challenging emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Racism, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

hmstaab's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia and Death of parent

Moderate: Animal death, Deadnaming, Death, Dementia, and Dysphoria

danaaliyalevinson's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective 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

I liked this book a lot! I’m a sucker for a generational story, which are also really hard to pull off well. I think this book has a few contrivances between the two depicted generations but largely pulls off a satisfying conclusion. The prose is beautiful. And as a trans person reading it, the relationship especially between Nadir and Sami was so beautifully rendered.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Hate crime, Blood, Islamophobia, Grief, Death of parent, and Dysphoria

Moderate: Transphobia, Medical content, and Medical trauma

puttingwingsonwords's review

emotional hopeful reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Dysphoria

Moderate: Animal death, Hate crime, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Transphobia, Xenophobia, Blood, Islamophobia, and Medical content

Minor: Pregnancy and Sexual harassment