Reviews with content warning for Homophobia - The Terror

Finishing this book was my own journey to find the Northwest Passage.

Genuinely one of the best books I’ve ever read, but I’d never recommend it to anyone because it’s objectively horrifying. I’ve had nightmares about botulism and cannibalism for weeks. This book will stay with me forever.

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amaranth101's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense 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? No

4.5

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rafirth42's review against another edition

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I was very invested in the plot, but the sheer amount of racism, homophobia, and misogyn turn me off from finishing the book. Especially the sexualization and slut-shaming of Esquimaux women and girls. I understand having some of those elements present for the time period yhe book is set in and character development, but in the first 300 pages of the book there was virtually no character development and I decided I didn't want to deal with those elements for another 600 pages.

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inediblecupcake's review against another edition

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slow-paced

I read this book as part of a book club. I don't think I ever would have picked it up otherwise.

While I did have a decent enough time listening to it, there were some very uncomfortable aspects that I had to put aside to do so.

The portrayal of the native people seemed questionable at best. I understand that the sailors would have their very of the time biases and racism, but the way the natives were written to behave seemed very odd to me.

Having Crozier go on to marry and have children with the very young Silence made me deeply uncomfortable. That, and the way he was assimilated into the native culture the way he was felt icky.

I'm not familiar with the culture being borrowed from here, so I'll refrain from saying more.

Beyond that, the things that stood out to me were the homophobia and the way the cannibalism went down.

Having the evil man of the ship be one of the only queer characters, and him and his lover being the only ones to be allowed to have sex - the Good Gays don't do that on the sea - was deeply uncomfortable to me.

The cannibalism being a thing that only the bad people do, while understandable as an urge to write, felt deeply unrealistic and optimistic. People do awful things when they feel they have no other options left, and making it so that only the evil queer man and his team partook in that added to the discomfort.

Because of all that, and some other elements I won't get into, I'm left with no idea how to rate this book, so for now, I won't.

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thissydknits's review against another edition

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I had such high hopes. I love the setting of the story and the idea of the monster but I just can't handle the racism. It is beyond gratuitous. I can't see past how the Indigenous characters are talked about. You can't tell me that the racism is period-relevant. There are ways to write racist characters without referring to indigenous people solely using slurs and insults. In the end no matter how much I liked the plot I couldn't get past how unsafe the author makes me feel. I would even get into the fact that the WHITE author invented his own Inuit folklore inspired monster... Just watch the TV series, it is much better and far less racist and homophobic.

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