Reviews tagging 'Police brutality'

Dead Dead Girls by Nekesa Afia

17 reviews

venetiana's review against another edition

challenging mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.25

Great atmosphere and setup, loved the characters. Unfortunately very slow, and somewhat repetitive.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Blood, Murder, and Alcohol

Moderate: Hate crime and Racial slurs

Minor: Gun violence, Homophobia, Misogyny, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Stalking, Lesbophobia, and Injury/Injury detail

talonsontypewriters's review

I tried to eke it out because I hate DNF'ing things, but if it's still this difficult to trudge through very short chapters over halfway through it's probably just going to get worse. I hate to say anything that implies debut = poor quality, because that's just not true in so many cases (and subjective anyway), but unfortunately it does apply here, at least for me.

The writing is painfully dull -- very choppy and simplistic, walls of stilted dialogue with no differentiating character voices, all telling and no showing, so much repetition and so many epithets -- and the plot isn't interesting enough to make up for it. A sense of suspense is almost nonexistent; any foreshadowing is too frequent and heavyhanded to be effective. I do feel some level of intrigue, but mostly just to confirm my suspicions, and it's not enough to get me to power through to see. Subplots are present in abundance and go unresolved and unacknowledged for chapters at a time, with awkward pacing and scene/chapter transitions.

All that alone makes anything hard to invest in, but I also can't get a sense of really any of the characters: Everything about them is told and not shown, and none of them really stand out. There are a lot of side characters, and I had trouble remembering who some of them were. Even the setting falls flat -- without some slang and a few technology notes, it would be indistinguishable from the present day, which is really disappointing because 1920s Harlem has so much to work with... and it just is not there.

Dead Dead Girls has so much potential, but sadly it's not followed up on as it could be. Maybe I'll be able to return to it in a more patient mood, but for now it's a hard pass.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Misogyny, Racism, Sexual assault, Violence, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Confinement, Gun violence, Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Sexual content, Vomit, and Lesbophobia

Smoking, including underage. Descriptions of dead bodies. Broken arranged marriage between a 16- and 22-year-old, no actual romance (at least at this point); references to sexual dynamics between teenage girls and adult men. Attempted rape/sexual assault shown, others implied -- scene where police discuss assaulting a Black woman in custody.

whitneyonline's review against another edition

So borrring. Tried to be ominous and forwshadow-y but ended up just spoiling the book. The pacing was absolutely in the gutter and there was no tension or suspense or mystery at all. I tried really hard to power through but at 40% of the way I'm letting myself throw in the towel.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Police brutality, and Murder

amandas_bookshelf's review against another edition

mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Blood, Police brutality, and Alcohol

Moderate: Death of parent

lormurenzi's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Misogyny, Racism, Kidnapping, Stalking, and Murder

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Sexual assault, Violence, Blood, and Police brutality

Minor: Homophobia

latebush's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Police brutality, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, and Murder

readundancies's review against another edition

mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

This story, as far as mysteries go, was very underwhelming. The writing is very tell not show, there was not nearly enough exposition with respect to world building for my taste, and the pacing always seemed like we were a half step ahead of the main plot through the entirety of the novel. 

I did not connect to any of the characters. I did not care for virtually all of them. I didn’t actively hate any of them but I didn’t really like them either. There seemed to be some sort of an emotional component lacking in all of the characters that I could not overcome. 

I appreciated the 2SLGBTQIA+ rep, and the racial aspects of the novel, but nothing felt truly flushed out in a way that captivated me. 

All in all, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this story, I just didn't really find it all that engaging. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Violence, Police brutality, Kidnapping, and Murder