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spookyaz's review
- 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
Graphic: Confinement, Cursing, Violence, Vomit, Trafficking, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail
danielnski's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Child death, Death, Physical abuse, Racism, Violence, Xenophobia, and Islamophobia
Moderate: Gun violence, Trafficking, Grief, and War
hilaryreadsbooks's review
5.0
I am most drawn to this word: flight. Flight: described as “the body becom[ing] a lightness and the lightness a world.” Flight: the treacherous path this boat brings these refugees to the bottom of the ocean and dead onto the shore. Flight, here, is no child’s play. It’s life or death. It’s oppression or freedom. Or, simply, it’s the desire to be unchained, to walk the world with wings on one’s feet—a world with no borders and no armed guards and no violence in the act of movement. But there’s no “playing at flight” here. There is a powerful scene of severed wings on the rocks by the ocean, clipped and broken away from body. Flight is punished, dehumanized, bloodied. If you pick this book up (and please do), prepare yourself for an unexpected landing at the end that will break your heart.
I could swim in Omar El Akkad’s prose infinitely. He gives us “echo-breathing emptiness of sea” and “arpeggio spring” and how can I resist? WHAT STRANGE PARADISE has stayed in my mind, flight and lyricism and all, since I’ve read it earlier this year.
Graphic: Death and Trafficking
rebeccafarren's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Graphic: Racism, Xenophobia, and Trafficking
emzireads's review
4.0
Moderate: Violence, Trafficking, and Grief
daniellekat's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
4.75
Graphic: Death, Racism, Xenophobia, and Trafficking
Moderate: Confinement and War
just_one_more_paige's review
- 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? No
4.0
Graphic: Death, Xenophobia, and Grief
Moderate: Confinement, Racism, Islamophobia, Trafficking, Religious bigotry, and Pregnancy
Minor: Child death, Violence, and Police brutality
marabdelmageed's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Xenophobia and Islamophobia
Moderate: Child death, Death, Vomit, Trafficking, Pregnancy, War, and Injury/Injury detail
stacieh's review
- 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
Graphic: Death and Xenophobia
Moderate: Police brutality
Minor: Trafficking