Reviews tagging 'Rape'

A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

15 reviews

emmanicoleman's review

challenging dark reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Violence, and Drug use

Moderate: Sexual violence, Torture, Rape, Sexual assault, Physical abuse, Hate crime, and Racial slurs

Minor: Pregnancy, Trafficking, Vomit, Homophobia, War, and Religious bigotry

siobhanward's review against another edition

tense slow-paced

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

3.5

 This was a cool premise and was mostly well executed, but boy was it long. It felt a lot like it could have lost 200-300 pages and not been greatly impacted. There felt like there was a lot of build up that then fizzled out, but the build up was so strong that it definitely made the book better.

I think part of the challenge is that there were a ton of characters - James used them well (and having a who's who at the beginning helped a ton), but it felt at times like there were whole chapters where not a lot happened and we learned little about the character it focused on. I think fewer of these chapters would have made things a lot better. I was happy to have learned so much about a time and place I knew nothing about (1960s-80s Jamaica) and James did an excellent job bringing readers up to speed about what was happening at the time without it feeling like a textbook. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Murder, Rape, Gun violence, Drug abuse, and Drug use

isabeldotml's review against another edition

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Drug abuse, Murder, Rape, Torture, Mass/school shootings, Sexual assault, Gun violence, and Child death

Moderate: Schizophrenia/Psychosis

maddsienicole's review

challenging dark tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Rape, Body horror, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Police brutality, Sexual assault, Vomit, Blood, Excrement, Sexual violence, Violence, and Murder

ktrain3900's review against another edition

challenging dark funny informative reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.5

You don't read this book so much as you experience it. Within the first hundred pages, I almost put it down and added it to my DNF collection. It's a hard world to enter--poverty, misogyny, foul language, racism, classism, explicit violence, casual death, homophobia so omnipresent you feel like you need a new word for it--and for some, it won't be doable (and that's fair). But if you can do it, you'll be rewarded with a rich, layered, albeit brutal, journey through both time and place. You stay for the characters, none of them shining, all suffering in their way, as they try to survive with whatever generally poor hand of cards they've been dealt. Definitely makes me want to read more by the author - the writing is just so well-done. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Gun violence, Homophobia, Misogyny, and Murder

Minor: Drug abuse, Racial slurs, Rape, and Police brutality

This book is not for anyone easily triggered by any sort of violence or language.

whatthekatdraggedin's review

challenging dark sad slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Cursing, Murder, Drug use, Addiction, Blood, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Mass/school shootings, and Gun violence

Moderate: Rape, Vomit, and Excrement

Minor: Pregnancy

panoptican's review

challenging dark informative sad tense 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Sexual harassment, Rape, Mental illness, Drug abuse, Domestic abuse, Cursing, Trafficking, Misogyny, Child abuse, Alcoholism, Addiction, Racial slurs, Sexism, Physical abuse, Death, Gun violence, Violence, Racism, Bullying, Sexual violence, Transphobia, Torture, Police brutality, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Infidelity, Fire/Fire injury, and Drug use

carlytenille's review against another edition

adventurous challenging informative slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Violence, Death, Drug use, Gun violence, Rape, and Excrement

goofygoober27's review

dark tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Torture, Addiction, Gun violence, Mass/school shootings, Sexual assault, Misogyny, and Rape

chalkletters's review against another edition

challenging dark tense slow-paced

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

1.0

At some point, I must have read a review of A Brief History of Seven Killingswhich intrigued me enough to buy the book, but I no longer remember it. A brief look online didn’t provide much in the way of clues as to why I thought this would be enjoyable. The historical context of an assassination attempt on Bob Marley was completely unfamiliar, and the phrase ‘crack wars in New York City’ not exactly promising for an entertaining read. 

Marlon James’ style feels intentional; each character has a different voice, using 'the Singer’ instead of Bob Marley’s name elevates him to a mythic figure and the stream-of-consciousness changes to reflect the emotional and mental states of his characters. Unfortunately, going in with no prior knowledge of events combined with vast array of narrators and the overload of detail made it difficult to pick out which people and events would prove to be important. The narrative is hard work for an uninformed reader, especially the middle section where the chapters are long enough to feel exhausting. 

A Brief History of Seven Killings is also, as is to be expected, incredibly violent. As well as the advertised assassination and drug wars, there’s a lot of background violence, both sexual and otherwise, which certainly didn’t lighten the emotional load any. The Gallows Pole was similarly violent, but A Brief History of Seven Killings had none of that poetic prose to ease the relentlessly miserable experience almost all of the characters were having.

What Marlon James did well was ratchet up the tension, especially just prior to the assassination attempt, but also before other explosive events. Even with no knowledge of what was coming, it was obvious that something was about to go down, which was emotionally engaging. 

A reader who picked up A Brief History of Seven Killings because the blurb or real-life history sounded intriguing would probably enjoy it, this book just wasn’t for me, and I blame that more on whatever I read that interested me in it more than I blame it on the book itself.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Mass/school shootings, Murder, Physical abuse, and Violence

Moderate: Addiction, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Police brutality, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Suicide

Minor: Cancer, Confinement, Excrement, Medical content, Pregnancy, and Vomit