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sproutedpages's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide
Moderate: Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Grief, and Abandonment
Minor: Drug abuse, Drug use, and Blood
lynxpardinus's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
inspiring
reflective
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, and Blood
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide, Vomit, Grief, Suicide attempt, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, and War
Minor: Incest and Suicidal thoughts
Incest warning is just in case, for the ambiguity of certain relationships.ceallaighsbooks's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-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
4.5
“My dream was to see the world, over time. The real dream is to make a world—to see the people and still want to make a world.”
TITLE—The Gilda Stories
AUTHOR—Jewelle Gomez
PUBLISHED—1995
GENRE—queer vampire story; literary fiction; historical fiction
SETTING—various places across the US including Mississippi, Louisiana, San Francisco, Missouri, Boston, NYC, New Hampshire, the SW (from 1850 - 2050)
MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—vampires, queerness, Blackness, found family
WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️—the writing style just felt a bit slow and bumpy; it was beautiful just not as fluid as I like it to be...
CHARACTERS—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
PLOT—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️—this book is not about plot but I felt there was just the slightest of disconnects between chapters that felt a little distracting and also repetitive at times...
BONUS ELEMENT/S—[spoiler, lol] Bird went to New Zealand to participate in the Maori landrights movement!; also the found family trope was really well-developed in this story—one of my favorite things about vampire lit <3
PHILOSOPHY—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This book was like “vampire story but make it a literary memoir” and yeah—I am here for it. <3 It has a lot of the tropes surrounding vampire stories such as sex and body horror, found family, discussion of the ethics of immortality etc. I think it is inarguably the best demonstration of the importance of both queerness and Blackness in the vampire mythology as well. It was a *very* slow read for me for some reason though, although I kept on with it because I was interested in the story (and it was a bookclub pick 😂) but at times I was feeling a *little* bit like I was slogging through it.
“…as neoliberalism encourages privileged families to shape their lesbian and gay households in the image of hetero-patriarchy, Gilda’s example of chosen family and queer reproduction is instructive.”
I also particularly love the above quote from Alexis Gumbs’s afterword to the 25th Anniversary edition. It demonstrates why this book is *such* an important part of the queer literary tradition and what Gomez was really trying to accomplish thematically with Gilda and her story.
“My life is wherever I am.”
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Further Reading—
- the Tao Te Ching
- Fledgling, by Octavia Butler
- maybe one of the Interview with a Vampire series, by Anne Rice?
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Rape, and Blood
Moderate: Racism, Slavery, Suicide, and Suicide attempt
Minor: Drug abuse, Drug use, and Sexual content
Graphic description of burned flesh; prostitution