Reviews tagging 'Racial slurs'

Différentes saisons by Stephen King

11 reviews

voldycat's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• 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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Racial slurs, Xenophobia, and War

Moderate: Cursing

joshkiba13's review against another edition

dark emotional medium-paced

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

4.0

Four novellas 😎

"Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" - I was surprisingly underwhelmed my this one. The film is one of my favorites of all time, but the novella seemed so much less intimate; much more distant. I didn't get that sense of hope and triumph that the film gave me.

"Apt Pupil" - By far the darkest and most grotesque work I've read by King, but it was such an alluring and interesting story watching a boy become corrupted by morbid curiosity and obsession.

"The Body" - I read this by itself back in January and really enjoyed it. King has come out and said that this story (minus the device of the body) is pretty autobiographical, so that makes it cool when you look at these 4 young boys maturing and coming into their own. Gordie comes to love telling stories, and I was so touched by Chris's grappling with who he wanted to be versus how he was expected to be.

"The Breathing Method" - I read this one in one sitting (only ~70pgs). Such a simple concept: men gathering by a fire to tell stories (or "tales"). An aged doctor tells a haunting story of a birth that widened my eyes and dropped my jaw.

King states in his Afterword that even if stories he writes aren't "horror" per se, elements of that genre always slip in, which rings true with these four stories. I was touched, I was disturbed, and entertained. I love these words with which he ends his Afterword: "I hope that you liked them, Reader; that they did for you what any good story should do---make you forget the real stuff weighing on your mind for a little while and take you away to a place you've never been. It's the most amiable sort of magic I know." -Stephen King

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore

Moderate: Racial slurs and Sexual content

mmadill227's review against another edition

dark reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Rape, Sexual assault, Antisemitism, and Murder

Moderate: Child death, Death, Racial slurs, Vomit, Car accident, and War

Minor: Fatphobia, Genocide, Abortion, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

sareena's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Murder, Toxic friendship, War, and Injury/Injury detail

americattt's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark reflective tense

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

2.5

"Even if I'd known the right thing to say, I probably couldn't have said it. Speech destroys the functions of love, I think that's a hell of a thing for a writer to say, I guess, but I believe it to be true. If you speak to tell a deer you mean it no harm, it glides away with a single flip of its tail. The word is the harm. Love isn't what asshole poets like McKuen want you to think it is. Love has teeth; they bite; the wounds never close. No word, no combination of words, can close those lovebites. It's the other way around, that's the joke. If those wounds dry up, the words die with them. Take it from me. I've made my life from the words, and I know that is so."

favorite short story: the Body

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Violence, Car accident, and Murder

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Racial slurs, and Rape

Minor: Homophobia

thecatsmum'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? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

If you're new to Stephen King, and you ask for recommendations on what to start with, this is likely going to be one of the first you're given. 

I'm not going to tell you that this collection of four novellas are bad or should be avoided. Two are excellent, one is pretty good, and one is awful. They are all graphic and disturbing. 

Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption and The Body are great and have been adapted into what are now classic films. The novellas are much more explicit than the films, so check the content warnings. The Breathing Method is a classic gothic feeling King tale. The less said about Apt Pupil the better.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child death, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Racial slurs, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Vomit, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Car accident, and Injury/Injury detail

cate_with_a_c's review against another edition

3.0

Not really impressed by this set of Novellas but the Body had some good parts to it. 
My main critique is that in Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, the way Andy is revealed to be Black is really bad. The story itself is 113 pages and on page 100 Red (who is white Irish guy) says Andy was a good n word. 
I’ve read a lot of King and he is not afraid to use slurs especially for certain time periods when it’s more accepted but wow it looks like he really just wanted to use it right before the story wrapped up. It added nothing to the novella. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs

Moderate: Death, Rape, and Violence

uhm_kai's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

4.25

nice and spooky

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Antisemitism, Car accident, Murder, and Pregnancy

yasmin_raev's review against another edition

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Cursing, Gore, Physical abuse, Rape, Medical content, Car accident, and Pregnancy

Minor: Racial slurs

queergoth_reads's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Antisemitism, and Murder

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, and Suicide

Minor: Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Abortion, and Alcohol