Reviews tagging 'Bullying'

Bewilderment by Richard Powers

11 reviews

carbine's review against another edition

I absolutely loved The Overstory and was excited to move on to Bewilderment. It became clear within the first third of the book that I would not enjoy the depth of character development that I enjoyed in the previous work.

I abandoned this one at the point when

the father physically abuses his autistic (but not officially autistic!) son. The ableist stereotypes were too much for me, as was the authors' decision to pair a disabled child with a neglectful and abusive father, then pass that off as "dad is just grieving".

I did not find any of the characters likeable or relatable, although the son could have been if he had been treated as a human and not defined solely by his neurodivergence.

I acknowledge that my viewpoint may be biased as I work in mental health with children and families who fit this description, thus it may have hit too close to home. Still, I really would prefer to read stories about neurodivergent folks written by members of that community. Otherwise, it too often comes across as exploitative.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Car accident, Grief, Physical abuse, Death of parent, Ableism, and Bullying

perseusj4ckson's review against another edition

emotional inspiring sad medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

i’m devastated. powers has done it again. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Child death, and Mental illness

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Bullying, Car accident, and Death of parent

jaynovara's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent and Grief

Moderate: Self harm, Mental illness, Child death, and Car accident

Minor: Bullying, Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Infidelity

madscientistcat's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

2.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism and Child death

Moderate: Bullying

hollyd19's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

Reading Bewilderment felt like diving without an oxygen tank, knowing that when you break to go to the surface the coral will disappear, so you hold your breath until it hurts and keep your eyes wide because the beauty is overwhelming but the panic is setting in, too.

Bewilderment follows Theo, an astrophysicist widower, and his young, neurodiverse son named Robin. The two are attempting to navigate their increasingly unstable world, on a personal level after the loss of their wife/mom & in terms of climate change and political unrest. When Robin is threatened with expulsion for an outburst at school, Theo enrolls him in a neurofeedback study happening at his university, which sets in motion the rest of the book. 

This was my first Powers and I was very moved by his writing. I took so many notes and highlighted several passages. Relatedly, I felt that Robin’s neurodiversity was portrayed with tenderness and honesty. 

Now some minor spoilers to talk about why it wasn’t an unequivocal five stars.

I strongly dislike gratuitous tragedy and since the rest of the book felt masterfully subdued, I was pretty bothered by the revelation that Aly was pregnant when she died. It added nothing. In a similar vein, I was unsatisfied with how Powers wrote the bit about Aly’s possible infidelity. At first it was guardedly hinted at, but when Theo asks “Is he mine?” it felt a bit ham-handed.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Death of parent, and Grief

Moderate: Bullying, Panic attacks/disorders, Ableism, Gaslighting, Mental illness, Animal death, and Self harm

Minor: Car accident, Cursing, Suicidal thoughts, Infidelity, Pregnancy, and Xenophobia

atamano's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Child death, and Self harm

Moderate: Animal death, Bullying, and Car accident

Minor: Infidelity

kah296's review against another edition

adventurous emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

I thought this book was PHENOMENAL. In my opinion, it was better than The Overstory. The writing and characters were just gorgeous and it was well-paced. My only complaint is that the end felt a bit rushed. Even so, I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time and will be recommending it to friends and family. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Grief, Death of parent, Animal death, Mental illness, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Car accident and Ableism

laurenmvmills's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death of parent, Animal death, Death, Ableism, Animal cruelty, Genocide, Medical content, Bullying, and Car accident

erinwolf1997's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death of parent, Death, and Grief

Moderate: Ableism and Car accident

Minor: Animal death, Bullying, and Self harm

annasophie's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

2.5

2.5 stars – Oof I don’t know what to make of this book. Let me start by saying when Power’s writing is good, it is amazing. Overall however, this was mostly..boring? I find his characters usually very interesting but here they started to annoy me. I didn’t care for any of them, which for a predominantly character driven book is obviously bad; and having fictional, albeit very very obvious, stand-ins for Greta Thunberg and the President-who-should-not-be-named and other social media ‘influencers’ did not help. If you write a 13 year old Swiss climate activist at least give her a Swiss name not a Scandinavian one; how more obvious can you be? I found most of this book very annoying because everything seemed to repeat itself, even down to the sentences; different, but interchangeable throughout the entire length of the book. Maybe it would’ve been better off as a short story or maybe it’s just me being a picky reader but this really did not work for me.

A neutral observation: never did I think I would read the words ‘tofu scramble’ and ‘black salt to nutritional yeast ratio’ in a Powers novel, or any novel for that matter, but there’s a first for everything I guess so that’s fun. Btw, tofu scramble w/ black salt and nutritional yeast is delicious actually but make sure to add some onion, cumin, turmeric and ginger, splash of lemon juice and a tiny bit of sweetener too. Pro tip, I promise.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying

Moderate: Death

Minor: Suicide, Self harm, and Violence