Reviews tagging 'Cursing'

Bitter by Akwaeke Emezi

10 reviews

therewillbenewsuns's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense 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

4.5

I loved this even more than PET, which I really did like. It’s tricky reading books that relate to revolutionary practices— are the ideas in the book a reflection of the author or the characters? Or both? Just interesting questions that I ask when reading books of this genre. Although, it’s hard to limit this to one singular genre. Like Pet, I was drawn to the blurring of reality and fantasy. I found that this was better paced and detailed than PET. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cursing, Death, Gore, Self harm, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Police brutality

lana72905's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective tense fast-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? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Child abuse

eni_iilorak's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense fast-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? No

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Gun violence, Racism, Self harm, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Grief, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Drug use, Medical content, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Biphobia, Homophobia, Rape, Forced institutionalization, and Abandonment

displacedcactus's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful 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? Yes

This prequel to Pet provides more context about how the city of Lucille got rid of its monsters. Unfortunately, I felt like it just shone a light on the holes in the world building. Based on references to real-life people and events, it feels like Lucille is a city on Earth, probably in the US? But the city seems to exist in a void, with no reference to county, state, or federal organizations.

Bitter shows us the start of how Lucille got rid of its monsters. Pet shows us a Lucille that believes the monsters are gone. But what I really want is the story of how Lucille appears to operate as an autonomous city. What is going on in the rest of the world? Has this revolution rippled out into the rest of the country or the world? Is the rest of the world watching Lucille as a sort of case study?

Just like Pet, Bitter ends up being a story about justice, vengeance, crime, and punishment, about what monsters deserve and the fine line that we have to walk to protect the vulnerable among us while also trying to minimize the stains on our own conscience. But just like Pet, I felt like Bitter could have spent a bit more time sitting with these ideas rather than rushing the resolution.

I feel like you can probably read these two books in whichever order you want -- they each spoil certain elements of the other.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cursing, Drug use, and Violence

Minor: Blood

The drug use in question is marijuana being smoked by 17ish year old characters. It's not really specified whether or not weed is legal in Lucille, but one would presume it still wouldn't be for minors.

cookiecat73's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Excrement, Police brutality, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Ableism, Mental illness, and Classism

Minor: Drug use and Rape

sadiefc's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Blood

Moderate: Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Racism, Self harm, Police brutality, Abandonment, and War

emilyreads_books's review against another edition

dark emotional inspiring sad tense 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Gun violence, Mental illness, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Grief, Murder, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

sarah984's review against another edition

emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

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

4.5

I liked this a lot, but it suffered a bit from inevitably being compared to Pet, which I loved. The writing style in Bitter is a little more grounded, a kind of standard YA writing where the lessons in the text are stated outright. Because this is set in pre (and during) revolution Lucille there are more real-world parallels. Some of these worked for me and some didn't. I liked the characters and the basic outline of the story but things got a bit muddled toward the end for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm

Moderate: Body horror, Death, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Bullying, Child abuse, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, Infidelity, Racism, Sexual assault, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

silverraine's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful tense medium-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Cursing, Death, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Blood, Police brutality, Murder, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

caseythereader's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring sad 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? It's complicated

4.0

Thanks to Knopf Young Readers for the free advance copy of this book.

- BITTER is the prequel to Emezi's YA novel PET, and follows Jam's mother Bitter in the pre-revolution days.
- Given that Bitter is older than Jam was in PET, this novel has a slightly more adult feel - PET felt like a middle grade fairytale, while BITTER is more like a parable from a parallel timeline. It also expanded the world and its fantastical elements a bit, which was great.
- These books would be great gifts for kids interested in activism, particularly around social equity. Emezi has built the world of Lucille to shear down the world's problems to just resource distribution and policing, making these a good place to start. They even name drop some prominent activists from our world (Brooks, Kaba, etc.) to give readers a trail to follow. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Sexual content

Minor: Alcohol