aduda06's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense slow-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

4.75


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elliebasta's review against another edition

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

5.0


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callysutherland's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad slow-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

2.25


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amymegan27's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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kmhst25's review against another edition

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emotional sad

3.75

Such a unique book. I had heard a lot about it, and it still took me completely by surprise. 

Strengths:
  • Making you care about truly reprehensible people. The male and females leads are both exceedingly unlikeable, and it can be hard to make an unlikeable character compelling. Mitchell does it with ease.
  • The South's perspective of the Civil War. There's a lot of emotional context for what the war was like for people in the South. The writing makes you sympathize for the characters, even though you can't sympathize for their cause.
  • Sheer readability. It's so dramatic that you can read it for hours at a stretch.

Weaknesses:
  • The length. The book spans 12 years and is over 900 pages long. No book needs to be that long, and this one is no exception. There are sections that drag, specifically in the years before and after the war.
  • The South's perspective of Reconstruction. The racism in this section is truly off the charts and the history is one-sided at best, downright lies at worst. This is a disappointment, because the history of the Civil War section holds up. 
  • No neat wrap-up. Mitchell has said that the book's theme is survival, which I would agree with, but I wouldn't say that there's a definitive takeaway or clean ending. It simply ends.

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lemonflower's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-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

4.5

This is a tough one. The story is so good but the racism, misogyny, and romanticism of slavery is so strong. Every praise you’ve heard of this book is true, and every criticism is equally, if not more, true. In the end, I’m giving it a good rating because I rate them based on how engaged I was and emotionally invested, and that was a lot…. But yeah. It’s a tough one.

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another_aspiring_writer's review against another edition

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slow-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? Yes

3.75


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kimberlina82's review against another edition

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

4.0


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spencerdance's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional 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

3.0

Worth reading? Probably. American literature and all that. 

As racist as I expected it to be? More so. Standard white savior stuff mixed with just about every stereotype you could possibly imagine. 

Better than the weird nonsense in the thornbirds, my comparison for all trashy epics. No. I'd rather read that again 10000 times than read this ever again. 



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tree_branch's review against another edition

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

3.0

If you take out all the racist propaganda, this is a 5-star book. Chapter 37 in particular should be ripped out. After reading that, I would have given this 1 star, if not for the extremely good ending of the book. The last, oh, about 8 chapters really got me interested. Such a relief to see a terrible person get what they deserve.

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