Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo

13 reviews

notthatcosta's review against another edition

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

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

5.0

As a fan of Animal Farm I found myself invested very early into picking this book up. In the same way as the former, the use of animals (animalisation?) initially disarmed me and gave me some levity before the multiple, inevitable emotional gut punches that were to come.

I found this book to be immaculately paced and immaculately executed, most notably in the inclusion of social media, that I rarely seen done successfully in any form of media.

It’s cliche but this is the kind of book I would love to see rolled out in schools like mine, where the majority of the students descended from former colonies who will recognise Jidada and its inhabitants in their family members.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Colonisation, and War

kammikim's review against another edition

challenging dark inspiring slow-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

This is a powerful book - in voice, in story, in style, in message. I found it challenging on multiple levels, and consequently slow to get through. That said, I think it's a deeply profound and important book and I'm glad I did eventually see it through to the end. The imagery, emotion, originality, and storytelling were truly inspiring to me. It's an inventive and compelling satire from a clear, confident, and compelling voice.

The challenges:
1. The unique style of narration is no doubt intentional and I think meant to represent oral traditions of storytelling, while also making a point about the repetitiveness of history, but the constantly repeating phrases and sentence structures did make for a sluggish or exasperating read at times. Some places it added power to the story, others it took away from the power and momentum in my opinion.
2. The violence in this book is necessary to the story, but it is truly difficult to get through. I ended some chapters sobbing and had to step away from the book for a month+ at a time to process and recover. It's a testament to Bulawayo's incredible command of emotion, empathy, and unflinching attention to the worst sides of humanity that it had such a visceral effect on me as a reader, but be aware that this is a really, really tough read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, Genocide, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Murder, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

orlagal's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Cancer, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Police brutality, Trafficking, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Deportation

rachelko's review against another edition

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture and Police brutality

Moderate: Misogyny

Minor: Sexual assault

luise96's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-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

4.5

What an interesting read! The writing style felt really unique and immersive. However I wish I would have known a bit more before reading the book as it had some very dark parts, which I wasn‘t prepared for. All characters felt so real even though they are portrayed as animals. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Misogyny, Violence, and Police brutality

Moderate: Rape

faduma's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Police brutality, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

foreverinastory's review against another edition

dark emotional tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

Glory is an allegory of Animal Farm set in the historical background of the Zimbabwe revolution (1980s-2019). We follow various animals as they fills roles of historical figures and we see how dictatorship follows the patterns laid out in Orwell's fictional piece.

This was a very compelling and emotional story. I loved the way repetition and humor were used as tools in the narrative. The audiobook narrator (Chipo Chung) was absolutely incredible and brought a rhythm to the story with the way they repeated words with various intonations.

Bulawayo did a beautiful job of crafting this intricate historical fiction. I am glad I read this immediately following Animal Farm. Such an interesting juxtaposition. There were so many characters followed in this story, but I was most invested in Destiny's and my heart felt all the emotions. *insert tears*

Rep: All Zimbabwean cast.

CWs: Violence, genocide, war, rape, police brutality, murder, colonisation, death, gun violence, grief, misogyny, sexual assault, torture, blood, classism, sexual violence, religious bigotry, sexism, injury/injury detail, child death, gore, physical abuse, racism. Moderate: suicide (off-page action, on-page mention), xenophobia, mass shooting, death of parent, animal death, body horror, cursing, homophobia/homomisia, slavery, panic attacks, fire/fire injury, vomit. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Misogyny, Rape, Violence, Police brutality, Murder, Colonisation, and War

differentsisters's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.5

 I see what the author was trying to do. Once I got use to the inclusion of Zimbabwean dialect, the book was readable. What became tiring was the heavy heavy use of repetition (a whole page of just the word take). I could see why some uses of repetition was used, but it became tiresome and felt like an editor needed to cut at least a hundred pages of repetition. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Gun violence, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Religious bigotry, Murder, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, and Classism

deedireads's review against another edition

challenging funny sad medium-paced

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

4.25

All my reviews live at https://deedispeaking.com/reads/.

TL;DR REVIEW:

Glory is a challenging but rewarding read. I liked it, but I respected and admired it even more. It won’t be for everyone, but there’s no denying that Bulawayo is masterful.

For you if: You like satire, enjoy a challenge, and don’t mind anthropomorphized animals.

FULL REVIEW:

Glory is NoViolet Bulawayo’s second novel to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and it’s easy to see why. This book is smart, inventive, and effective at what it sets out to do.

Glory closely follows the events during and after the coup that ousted Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe in 2017 — except that in this world, the country is called Jidada (with a -da and another -da!) and all the people are talking (clothes-wearing, cell-phone-using, otherwise extremely human) animals. It swoops between a lot of characters’ perspectives and mixes in alternative storytelling formats like Tweets. But it’s also all tied together with a fictional character named Destiny, who’d self-exiled from Jidada after experiencing war violence and has now returned.

This book is challenging, but I (and many others) found it rewarding. Others found it impossible to connect with or get through. It’s not going to be for everyone, but I think it’s worth the attempt! Bulawayo’s approach here with the animals works so well in highlighting the farcical nature of its subject matter and society overall, and it enables her to add extra absurdism to underscore her point that would just come across dumb if the characters were human (for example, at one point the President starts hitting on Siri).

I also really liked the more traditional verbal storytelling style of the writing, filled with lots of repetition and punctuation. It translated really well to audiobook. Be aware that parts of this book are hard to read, as they deal with genocide and war violence (including sexual violence).

All in all, there were definitely parts that I struggled to stay engaged with, and I wasn’t sorry to finish this book and mark it complete. But I do put it in the “liked overall” column, and I have a ton of respect and admiration for what Bulawayo has done here.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Misogyny, Rape, Violence, and War

Moderate: Sexual violence and Police brutality

rhi_'s review against another edition

challenging dark slow-paced

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

0.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Homophobia, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Violence, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Colonisation, War, and Classism

Moderate: Rape and Sexual violence