Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Winter of the World by Ken Follett

7 reviews

belou's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Mass/school shootings, Death of parent, Murder, Abandonment, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Genocide, Infertility, Forced institutionalization, Abortion, and Alcohol

Minor: Homophobia and Abortion

chloeereesss's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional 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

4.25

Preferred the first book in series. But realy excited for the third. Some very challenging chapters and descriptions of events. LOVE the characters and relationships throughout the book

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Body horror, Child death, Death, Genocide, Homophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail

asourceoffiction's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative medium-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

4.0

Like Fall of Giants, this is really several books at once; with separate but interconnected groups of characters spread across the UK, Germany, Russia and the US. The significance of history in this book is matched by that of the characters' more personal stories, and the balance between history and narrative is so brilliantly woven. In fact, it's the characters' individual stories that makes this so easy to read, despite its 900+ pages. The next generation from those we met in Fall of Giants takes up the narrative, but it's never unclear who anyone is thanks to Follett's gentle (but never patronising) reminders, and the cast list at the beginning of each book.

The Russian side of this story was particularly fascinating because I know so little about it, but it was incredibly disturbing to realise how much the Red Army abused their power as liberators of Germany. Assuming that the final part of the trilogy is about the Cold War, I'm intrigued to know more about this side of history.

While I love Follett's writing, this does suffer a little from a man-writing-female-characters perspective. That part of the book hasn't aged well and I did roll my eyes a few times at some of the assumptions made about women.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Racism, Rape, Torture, Murder, Pregnancy, and War

sin_z_ger's review against another edition

emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

The audiobook is VERY good.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, and Xenophobia

cathy_alice's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative inspiring sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Police brutality, Medical content, Death of parent, and War

leahisdudish's review against another edition

dark emotional informative tense medium-paced

3.0

t/w obvs because this is about war but the r**e scene really unsettled me.
also the way of writes about boobs gives me the ick. if you borrow my copy you will see REALLY KEN written next to every boob reference 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Racism, Rape, Sexual violence, Violence, Antisemitism, and War

angi's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Genocide, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Blood, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Medical content, and Death of parent

Moderate: Rape, Sexual content, and Torture

Minor: Vomit and Abortion