Reviews tagging 'Slavery'

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

36 reviews

colleenf's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad fast-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Slavery, and Cannibalism

Moderate: Rape, Suicide, and Gaslighting

mysimas's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective 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

3.5

Meditative look at humanity, civilisation, and the effect of an individual on the system at large. Some beautiful prose and impactful one-liners. Strong narrative voices of the individual POV characters. 

Plot-wise, some of the short stories were individually quite weak. The letters from Frobisher the composer were among the most enjoyable parts for me style-wise, but in terms of plot ended up quite unimpressive. I’d also have appreciated a stronger interconnectedness of the stories, such as if perhaps the incarnations learned from their past lives or were somehow directly influenced by them. What we have instead are fleeting mentions and references that have zero impact on the events.

An example for all - Frobisher commits suicide despite having read Adam Ewing’s diary, in which the latter laments the tragic suicide of a boy of about Frobisher’s age. But does this stop Frobisher or does he at the very least refer to it? Not at all.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Fatphobia, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Slavery, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, and Car accident

damjanotom's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark hopeful reflective 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? Yes

4.25

At first the form of the book in the vernacular and perspective of each character in their context is quite jarring but as the fragmented pieces of the 6 stories that make up the book are tied together, the humanity of each character and the shared history of the cast comes together to a cohesive and profound whole.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual violence, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Medical trauma, and Murder

Moderate: Sexism, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicide, Religious bigotry, and Colonisation

asolis's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated

3.0

Little library find. Six stories nested within each other - you pass halfway through each until you reach the center and work your way back through each second half in reverse order. While the stories are clearly linked together, I expected a stronger connection to reveal itself over time. 

I admit most of them took a minute to get into and I almost quit the whole book about 5 pages in. But once you get the hang of each story's dialect it draws you in hard. 

A lot of racism and I often wondered whether it was for effect, "historical accuracy," or why it was necessary. But ultimately it contributes to the overall track towards anticapitalism and environmentalism, a warning against white supremacy and the havoc it has and will wreak upon our planet and its people. 

I was pleased to benefit from my recent reading of Brave New World and 1984, which are especially referenced in the 5th story. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Confinement, Death, Genocide, Infidelity, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Vomit, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, and Toxic friendship

random19379's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Slavery, and Suicide

thinkingrobot's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Homophobia, Sexism, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Violence, Xenophobia, and Suicide attempt

artmuseam's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.5

this is probably one of the most confusing but extraordinary books i’ve ever come across. first, i particularly enjoyed the ways in which different storylines from various timelines all connected together through “easter eggs”, but i didn’t entirely understand the significance of how each storyline was connected to each other. i also didn’t like the storyline occurring in the middle. perhaps this is just me being uptight on my end, but when i read something that is difficult to decipher and takes a while to actually understand what the convoluted words are saying, i lose motivation to read on. in fact, i had to skim through that entire part just for the sake of finishing the story and seeing what happens in the end. i will say, however, that the other storylines were quite thrilling and kept me at the edge of my seat. when i noticed those easter eggs, i grew excited and wanted to find the significance—only to realize there wasn’t really one (unless i misread, or just completely skipped over it?) the concept itself was very interesting and the different writing styles (aside from the middle one) created a lively and visceral setting for the entire book. who knows, maybe i will have to give this a reread in the future to actually grasp it. this was definitely a confusing, thought provoking, and disoriented read that i weirdly enjoyed. 4.5/5 stars

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Stalking, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Rape, and Sexual assault

sr_marshrat's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.0

It's Mitchell, so, of course Cloud Atlas is beautifully written, each of his six worlds rendered such that they engulf the reader completely. It takes more than beautiful writing, though, to make a story engaging, and not all of Mitchell's six souls had stories that stood well on their own. I found myself racing through those chapters, less interested in the characters and their adventures, focussed instead on searching for the details that wove Mitchell's six, seemingly disparate, stories into one narrative. While some connections are clever, others are... thin. When the connective story elements are tenuous at best, they detract from the themes that would otherwise elegantly unify each chapter of this soul-journey into one novel.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Car accident, and Colonisation

Moderate: Gun violence, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, and Medical trauma

lanid's review against another edition

adventurous challenging reflective tense

• 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Genocide, Gun violence, Infidelity, Racism, Slavery, Suicide, Violence, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Murder, and Colonisation

balfies's review

adventurous mysterious reflective 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

3.75

Cloud Atlas is famously structured like a matryoshka doll with six very different stories, with the protagonist of each tale a reincarnation of the previous story's narrator. Mitchell's ability to craft distinct voices through genre and form is admirable, and he interweaves then with variable success. Some stories are obviously stronger than others - I really got into the Luisa Rey mystery and the clone ethics in Sonmi-451's neo-Seoul uprising.

It also gave me a lot to reflect on the process of adaptation, as I'd seen the Wachowskis' 2012 film version which is far weaker in narrative structure. 

Feel like I need all of the strands of this to settle in me properly before I can navigate their meaning. Overall enjoyable prose, but I found the philosophy tenuous and purpose slightly unclear.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Rape, Slavery, and Murder