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mxpringle's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Infidelity, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Abandonment, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail
awderrick's review against another edition
- 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
4.25
Graphic: Child death, Incest, Pedophilia, Racism, Sexual content, Violence, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
rcsreads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
No-one has ever made sex or food sound so disgusting. Also, none of the gross sex descriptions are actually necessary to the story.
I mainly kept going because the narrator on the audio book had such a calming voice.
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Excrement, Vomit, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, Murder, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail
rajawright's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Graphic: Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Grief, and Classism
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Sexual content
astridrv's review against another edition
- 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? Yes
Moderate: Child abuse, Death, Pedophilia, Racism, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Incest
jocelynh's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Starting with the minor complaints, the extremely frequent word concatenation for the kids' POVs drove me a little crazy. "Steelshrill," "chinskin," "trainrumble," "carbreeze," "greentrees," and "daymoon" are only some of the ones in chapter 2, and it keeps going from there.
There's also a bit of overreliance on simile and metaphor. It takes a long time for Roy to get to the main thrust of any scene, and I get the mild impression that Roy came up with a bunch of these turns of phrase and couldn't bear to edit any of them out, so they tend to clash overall. For example, we have:
The gray sky curdled and the clouds resolved themselves into little lumps, like substandard mattress stuffing.
Less than a paragraph later, there's:
Raindrops slid across the curved bottom of the rusted gutter on the edge of the roof, like shining beads on an abacus.
I wish they were at least thematically consistent; all the different imagery gave me whiplash. Some others are just bizarre:
The silence gathered its skirts and slid, like Spider Woman, up the slippery bathroom wall.
I will grant that she takes so much time with these, and with describing scenes in general, that the settings and events are extremely vivid. It felt almost like I was there, seeing, smelling, feeling, and hearing everything. Whether or not every detail (e.g. the formations of mosquitoes, or the personal histories of characters we never hear of again) is needed is perhaps more of a subjective call.
About 90% of the book is spent as exposition circling and leading up to the central event, and though we learn a lot about the characters and the cultural context, the writing (see above) makes it feel like a slog.
The God of Small Things is a somewhat long-winded and extremely emotionally ugly story, and that combination makes it a miserable read. Everyone suffers, no one is ever really happy except in a bitter, spiteful, gloating way.
It's a disgusting tale told in a poetic way. I think it's a very useful and culturally informative tale and I'm glad I read it as someone who isn't very familiar with Indian cultural biases, but I can't say I really enjoyed the journey.
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Incest, Misogyny, Violence, Police brutality, Death of parent, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail
shruti21's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Child abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Violence, Police brutality, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Domestic abuse