Reviews tagging 'Gore'

Native Son by Richard Wright

10 reviews

feefeeberry's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Max’s plea was jaw-dropping, and the end of the novel was beautiful. I tore through over 100 pages a day for most of when I read it, and I found it very compelling. The biggest flaw is that at times it is so overwhelmingly heavy-handed in the message that some of the depth gets lost. I’ve seen a few books do the same thing but better, so I likely would have enjoyed it more had I not read Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison beforehand. A very great book, and obviously kept me captivated, so it did something right.
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booksawyer's review against another edition

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I respect this book and this author, but I really couldn’t get through this one. It was extremely slow paced, and when you spend that much time with an unlikeable narrator it kind of gets unbearable.

I’m usually someone who can separate the morality of a character from the enjoyment of a book - sometimes a morally questionable character is there to prove a point. But this was too much and I honestly couldn’t handle it.
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gryffon's review against another edition

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morenowagain's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark informative sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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dustghosts's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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eengland's review against another edition

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

5.0

Not an easy read, but well done on all aspects. First half is B R U T A L. 
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loverofwisdomandmen's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative reflective tense slow-paced

4.25

Bro. I still need to do my deep dive for ap literature about this but UGH this was a PAGE TURNER.  Richard Wright had me on the edge of my seat- asking my study hall teacher whether or not human bones would burn in a furnace 😭 .  Just a very good piece of literature although I can’t disagree with the feminist criticisms of how one dimensional some of the women were depicted compared to the men- but that’s a whole nother can of worms- this is a gem of realist societal criticism . 
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laurbubbles's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
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ollie_miller's review against another edition

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Found it very full on and difficult to continue reading about such an unlikeable character. Also found the lack of chapters and page breaks challenging. 
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michaelion's review against another edition

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

1.75

Dear StoryGraph, I implore you, please add a trigger tag specifically for misogynoir, because it's disgusting how much of it is in this book.
The choice to open the book with Bigger killing a rat, then terrorizing his sister to the point where she faints and he laughs about it is mild foreshadowing of what's to come. Also, unrelated to the opening scene, there's something poetic about everything black men fear about being caught doing with a white woman, they do to Black women. Justice4Bessie!


If you're planning on reading this, brace yourself. In my edition, there was an excerpt where Wright tells the readers of a book club that the first draft of this book was 576 pages. Which actually makes me like this book less, because it could've easily been 200 pages shorter and been a tighter, sharper, better story. It was a drag to get through reading. In the third section of the book alone, one character monologues for 23 pages with no breaks. After a certain point you simply have to start skimming. But, I promise, you're not missing much.

I gave this rating an extra .25 for Jan and Max. It sucks that the characters I like most were the not-like-the-others whites!
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