Reviews tagging 'Racial slurs'

1984 by George Orwell

22 reviews

gnathan's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Death, Gaslighting, Gore, War, Torture, and Violence

Minor: Homophobia and Racial slurs

staceyinthesticks's review against another edition

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? It's complicated

2.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Racial slurs, Violence, Torture, War, and Misogyny

Minor: Alcohol and Sexual content

readerorwateva's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, War, Violence, Death of parent, Confinement, Classism, Colonisation, Misogyny, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Rape, Sexual content, War, Vomit, Racial slurs, and Slavery

lorraine19's review

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.75

The beginning can be a bit difficult to understand and slow to get into. But once as you really get into it and appreciate the world building, it opens your eyes to why this is considered a classic. There is a deep examination on what it means to be human at the root of this book that I think is often overlooked in favor of the political debates. The characters are complex people in a complex world. It is a very dark read but not a "feels good" book if that's what you are looking for. I personally appreciate the seriousness and the depth of this book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Violence, War, Slavery, Injury/Injury detail, Gaslighting, Confinement, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Blood, Body horror, Classism, Death, Forced institutionalization, Alcohol, Genocide, Gore, Grief, and Gun violence

Minor: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Mental illness, Murder, Racial slurs, Police brutality, Racism, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, Violence, Death of parent, Stalking, Cursing, Infidelity, Ableism, and Homophobia

daybreakreads's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

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

1.0

Painfully slow, dull writing. I normally enjoy dystopian novels but this one was just trying too har. Everything was for shock value, which ended up making nothing surprising. I find it ironic that the story involves sending a warning against scaring people into believing your political ideologies, but the author is a socialist and is advocating for socialism. The government claims to be socialist, but at one point it’s revealed it’s not actually socialist, and the only way forward is to become socialist. I don’t care what your political leanings are, there’s blatant hypocrisy by the author in trying to scare people into becoming socialist whilst advocating against scaring people into agreeing with your political opinions.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Police brutality

Moderate: Death, Gaslighting, Racial slurs, Alcohol, Classism, Confinement, Death of parent, and Racism

Minor: Sexual content, Vomit, Sexual violence, Child death, Sexual assault, Rape, Sexism, and War

One n word usage

maryamgo9909's review

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Police brutality and Racial slurs

mme_carton's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Child death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Murder, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Antisemitism, Blood, Body horror, Classism, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Stalking, Torture, Violence, Vomit, War, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Grief, Sexual assault, Alcoholism, Homophobia, and Rape

izzydelaya's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Gaslighting, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Chronic illness, Body shaming, Alcoholism, Racial slurs, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Eating disorder, Cursing, Classism, Sexual violence, Physical abuse, Murder, War, Violence, Emotional abuse, Stalking, and Abandonment

Minor: Infidelity, Colonisation, Antisemitism, Murder, Child death, Genocide, Grief, Death of parent, Stalking, and Slavery

chaosandwildflowers's review

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

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

2.5

I wanted to like this book so much. I really did. I love classics! I love challenging books that make you think! But from the moment I turned the first page, I just could not get into it!

First issue: the writing style. It's so...dry? Like even when things get interesting towards the end, it's a bit of a slog to get through. And this might have been the fault of my particular edition, but the paragraphs were SO long and blocky, especially once I got to the book within the book (don't even get me started on how useless I found the book within the book).

Second problem: the characters. To put it bluntly, I hated every single character. All of them. Except for the clothesline lady, I liked her well enough lmao, but everyone else I just wanted to strangle with my bare hands!! And I understand, I get it, I realize that this is part of the book's commentary, but what I've learned from reading this book is that it doesn't matter how ~deep~ the commentary is, if the character whose thoughts I'm reading is hateable and a loser, I just could not care less about what they have to say! And Julia? Equally hateable. She and Winston are, even at their best, SO self centered, I just honestly wanted to throw the book across the room the whole time either one of them was on the page, which was the entire time.

When I take a step back and look at this through the perspective of having read it, I see how Orwell was using every detail to get his message across, this whole idea of warning us of totalitarianism and the danger of not knowing the past, and all of that, but I don't think I will ever willingly read this book again.

So, at the end of the day, would I recommend this book? Yes and no. If you're looking for an entertaining dystopia on the level of The Hunger Games, you're not going to find that here. Buuuuuuut if you're in the kind of headspace where you're ready to read an unentertaining, repetitive, dryly written book with exactly zero likable characters to be seen; if you think you're ready to slog through all that, then yes   would recommend it because I think its the kind of book everyone should read at least once. Just don't go into it expecting to root for the characters or care more than a little about the plot.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture

Moderate: Death, Child death, Racial slurs, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Gaslighting, Blood, War, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual content, and Sexism

Minor: Fatphobia, Rape, and Death of parent

anna26's review against another edition

dark inspiring mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.75

I hated Winston (the main character) because of the way he talks about and to women (he fantasises about rape and murdering women, etc) but aside from this "character flaw" (wich ultimately represents the way women are treated in this dystopian society, so it's fine) i really liked this book, it's somewhat inspiring but equally terrifying and overall really "entertaining" (as entertaining as a dystopian, terrifying novel can be)!!!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Torture, Addiction, Alcohol, and Alcoholism

Minor: Rape, Sexual violence, Misogyny, Homophobia, Xenophobia, and Racial slurs