Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Dreamland by Rosa Rankin-Gee

5 reviews

reuben___'s review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-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

5.0

 This may be my favourite piece of contemporary fiction I’ve read this year so far. The world that Rankin-Gee creates is so real, tactile, and visceral, it feels as though you could reach out and touch it. 

Beautiful and heartbreaking, Dreamland transports its readers to the slow and violent end of the world. Here, austerity never ends, it transforms into an even more vicious and murderous regime. We watch this unfold slowly and suddenly through the eyes of Chance, the story’s narrator. 

Chance begins the story as a child, in a world that looks much like ours now. Her mother and brother are convinced to move out of London by a new housing scheme, where council house tenants are paid to leave the city. Their mother chooses Margate, where she lived as an art student, and was happy. Which is how they end up in the seaside town as England begins to fall into the sea and overheat.

This story is littered with love and violence, it is beautiful and terrible and deeply moving  as we follow the lives of a community condemned to face the end of the world, but determined to live.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Suicide, and Murder

odius_hades's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Death of parent, Murder, and Classism

Moderate: Rape

wilwarinde's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

• 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

I found this is some ways very challenging and yet easy to read.

It has really stuck in my head for days after, the characterisation, the location description and the utterly unexpected love story in the middle. Incredibly through provoking and visceral. The almost stream of consciousness writing style took a while to get into, then I flew through the book.

Loses points as I didn’t like the end at all. But that’s me and doesn’t detract from the utter necessity of people to read it, and do everything we can to avoid the future it imagines.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Rape, Sexual violence, Death of parent, Murder, and War

the_tridentarii's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

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

4.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Rape, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Death of parent, Murder, Classism, and Deportation

fran_____'s review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense fast-paced

• 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? It's complicated

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Abandonment, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism