Reviews tagging 'Body shaming'

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

15 reviews

zombiezami's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful reflective sad 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Medical content, Grief, Murder, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Cursing, Fatphobia, Racial slurs, and Racism

Minor: Drug abuse, Rape, Slavery, Blood, Death of parent, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, and Colonisation

Natural disasters, Colorism, Eugenics

amavi's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.0

The dialogue was very hard for me to read/understand luckily people here mentioned the audiobook and that saved me. This book had beautifully written aspects that I enjoyed, and I respected how real, raw and honest it was and the valuable conversations it brought up but I didn't like anything else. This book is supposed to be about Janie, this is her story yet for some reason I felt like she was the background character. I got a lot more from the people in her life rather than her. I wish I got more from her. I did like the ending, I like to think that she is better now. I understand why this book is important and how it's valuable but it just wasn't for me. I do hope someone can find something useful, healing, loving, worthy in this book, I didn't but I'm sure it would work for someone else.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Racial slurs, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Body shaming and Racism

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Death, Sexual content, and Murder

laura_huey's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective slow-paced

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

4.25

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is a challenging, reflective look at love, marriage, and self-identity in Florida throughout the early 20th century, and offers a confronting yet affectionate glimpse of the area's African-American community at the time. 

Janie, the protagonist, has been raised by her grandmother, Nanny, and longs for a loving, equal marriage to bring her fulfilment in life. However, when Nanny catches her kissing a boy over the garden gate, she arranges what she believes will be a profitable marriage for Janie. We follow Janie throughout her life as she comes to understand what real love is, what constitutes a fulfilling life, and the sacrifices she'll make for someone she loves.

As a white Australian woman, I found this book to be a challenging read. It was beautifully written, and portions of Hurston's prose are almost poetic, but I found it took quite a while to get my head around the dialect that the novel is written in. Now that I know the story, I think I would benefit from rereading this book in the future. I'm also interested in viewing the film before revisiting the novel, as I think that may help me with the dialect also.

Overall an excellent read. I recommend approaching it with compassion for all the characters and not forming your opinions about them until the end. Everyone is complex and has layered motivations behind their choices, so it's important not to judge them too quickly.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Terminal illness, Grief, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Body shaming, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Infertility, Infidelity, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Blood, Medical content, and Alcohol

Minor: Child death, Death of parent, and Dysphoria

cepbreed's review against another edition

emotional slow-paced

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

3.0

It wasn’t phenomenal, expected of a rushed AP Lit read I finished 5 minutes before a timed essay. I would say

when she shot her third husband, that was a girlboss moment.

I got a 93 on the essay though

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Sexual content

howie_e's review against another edition

emotional inspiring medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body shaming, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Toxic relationship, and Gaslighting