Reviews tagging 'Islamophobia'

The Thirty Names of Night by Zeyn Joukhadar

39 reviews

shugentobler's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense 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

4.75

This book was beautifully hard. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Self harm, Xenophobia, Islamophobia, and Death of parent

allimoose37's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring 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? No

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Blood, Islamophobia, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Miscarriage, Racism, Dementia, Pregnancy, Outing, and War

Minor: Chronic illness

lprongs's review against another edition

emotional hopeful mysterious 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Racism, Sexism, Islamophobia, Grief, Death of parent, and Dysphoria

Moderate: Transphobia and Colonisation

Minor: Sexual assault and Sexual content

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

sydneyl23's review against another edition

emotional informative inspiring mysterious 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent

Moderate: Xenophobia, Islamophobia, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, and Dysphoria

Minor: Animal death, Child death, and Sexual content

reading_mermaid's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

This is an incredible book, fullfullfull of emotion and heartache and hope and community. 

It is incredibly well written and laid out with endearing, lovable characters. I so highly recommend it.

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Content Warnings

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

Minor: Hate crime and Sexual harassment

displacedcactus's review

emotional hopeful reflective sad 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

This book has a very slow start, but once I got into it, I was really sucked into the dual timelines and finding the parallels and connections between them. It's definitely literary in its scope and tone, but with some fantastic elements. It's a bit of a ghost story, but in a sad way rather than a scary way. It's a bit of a coming of age story, a reminder that sometimes we don't get the chance to truly come into ourselves until sometime in adulthood. It's about family, both blood and chosen. And it's also about birds and art and race and gender and religion and so many important things.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and Dysphoria

Moderate: Animal death, Homophobia, Racism, Sexism, Transphobia, Islamophobia, and Death of parent

The main character is frequently misgendered, since he is not "out" for most of the book, but his deadname never appears on the page. Most of the transphobia is of the "I don't get it" sort from clueless but loving family members, rather than acts of hate and violence. The story also deals with the displacement of immigrant communities to make way for "progress" in the form of infrastructure that "has" to run through their neighborhoods.

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

ariiw's review

emotional slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Blood, Islamophobia, and Fire/Fire injury