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carleesi's review
I should have stopped reading when he wrote about a 12 year old trying so hard to seduce him that he finally had to give him to make his “wife” happy 🤢 The racism was very difficult to stomach, as was the homophobia.
It’s maybe 30% true (being generous) and sometimes interesting but I was done with reading his egotistical ramblings. Lots of people have covered how ludicrous it is that he’s told a story of everyone adoring him and sacrificing themselves to help him over and over again.
I wouldn’t recommend this book at all, I think it had its time and there are now much better adventures out there to read.
It’s maybe 30% true (being generous) and sometimes interesting but I was done with reading his egotistical ramblings. Lots of people have covered how ludicrous it is that he’s told a story of everyone adoring him and sacrificing themselves to help him over and over again.
I wouldn’t recommend this book at all, I think it had its time and there are now much better adventures out there to read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Gore, Homophobia, Racism, and Violence
naiu_cs's review against another edition
I just cannot deal with the fact that every messed up thing that the main character did is described as justifiable without any sort of reflection or criticism. The main character being the "hero" of the story (which fair, is his own life) is deeply problematic in the context of some of the things he does.
For example marrying children and engaging in sexual actvities with them.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Chronic illness
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Sexual content and Murder
katzilla99's review
adventurous
medium-paced
2.0
Henri was clearly a storyteller, not a writer. This was all very stream of consciousness with him saying things like "Oh, I'll talk about this later" or "This character dies a few days later but here is more of my interaction with them". Switched to the audiobook half way through and enjoyed that more I think due to Papillon's style, but I still didn't love it. Papillon was likely a very charismatic guy, but he added a lot of embellishment and hyperbole, I'm sure. Other than the writing style, I didn't like the homophobic slurs that were present throughout the book or that there were only a few female characters and two of them didn't even speak the same language as Papillon so they were really just bodies for him to have sex with. This really showed the misogyny present in Papillon which made sense with the time. I know that this is based on a true story so it's not like he could have added fictitious women, but it was still one of the reasons that I didn't enjoy this book as much as I wanted to.
This story had good examples of hope, hard work, and adventure, but not one that I would recommend to anyone or ever reread.
This story had good examples of hope, hard work, and adventure, but not one that I would recommend to anyone or ever reread.
Content Warnings
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Cursing, Death, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual content, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Cannibalism, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail
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