amphipodgirl's review
adventurous
fast-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
3.0
This is a hard one to rate. It was written in 1885 by a white Englishman who had worked in the colonizing force in southern Africa, and it is just as racist, sexist, imperialist, and colonialist as that would lead you to expect. He just has no respect for people of African descent or the cultures of Africa, and when one of them does get a compliment it is extremely back-handed. But it's a compelling adventure tale, and the writing is much more straightforward than I expected -- I had braced myself for Dickensian levels of sentence complexity, and it's a lot more modern-feeling than that.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Racial slurs, Colonisation, War, Sexism, Confinement, Death, and Blood
ayah_reads's review
slow-paced
First book for my Empire and it's Fictions course! Aside from being the usual imperialist garbage that depicts Africans as only barbaric or in servitude (this I had very much expected), it's an incredibly boring book. It's written as a letter to his son, and I feel sorry that this fictional son has to read such a long and ridiculously detailed story, even though at points the main character would leave details out, it was still such long, and boring story. British people really thought this was fun? An enjoyable adventure romance novel that became a bestseller 🙄
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Misogyny, Colonisation, Racial slurs, Animal death, and Violence
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