Reviews tagging 'Colonisation'

Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo

15 reviews

toniamarieparker's review against another edition

emotional hopeful slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Suicide, Death of parent, Rape, Colonisation, Death, War, Sexual harassment, Grief, and Racism

Moderate: Genocide and Kidnapping

oddity123's review against another edition

challenging funny slow-paced

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

4.75

Wow, just wow. Take Things Fall Apart’s cultural markers and oral storytelling feel, Animal Farm’s allegorical devices, the sweeping epic revolutionary backdrop of The House of the Spirits and set it in 2017 with WhatsApp and YouTube playing significant roles and you’ve got this Zimbabwean parable in about 400 pages. My favorite might be the “American tweeting baboon.” It’s  a challenging read, for sure, and I really think it could’ve been quite a lot shorter. The pace is really slow to start. Almost all the humor is in the first half though. Then it took my breath away. I wish I could incorporate this book into my world lit curriculum but it won’t fit. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Genocide, Torture, Police brutality, Colonisation, Rape, and War

Moderate: Cursing

Minor: Suicide

kers_tin's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense slow-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Violence, Gun violence, Religious bigotry, Police brutality, Classism, Colonisation, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Homophobia, Rape, Sexual assault, and Animal death

faduma's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Forced institutionalization, Murder, Religious bigotry, Sexual violence, Physical abuse, Kidnapping, Violence, Blood, Classism, Colonisation, Child death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Police brutality, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Torture, and Trafficking

sarahweyand's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

• 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

Honestly I feel kind of bad for disliking this one because I think the concept and the message are important. I appreciated the obvious nod to Animal Farm, and sometimes I thought there was nice prose. But this book was a slog if I've ever read one. I had to switch to the audiobook halfway through or I definitely would have DNF'ed it. I found the majority of the prose to be superfluous and overly repetitive (I'm talking literal pages of lists or repeated words). The story was told in such a style that the characters seemed flat and impossible to connect with.  There was less satire and humor than I was hoping for.

This book was a definite step outside my comfort zone to fulfill one of my reading challenges of reading a book from a different literary award shortlist each month, and I wish it had paid off more.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality and Violence

Minor: Colonisation

foreverinastory's review against another edition

dark emotional tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

Glory is an allegory of Animal Farm set in the historical background of the Zimbabwe revolution (1980s-2019). We follow various animals as they fills roles of historical figures and we see how dictatorship follows the patterns laid out in Orwell's fictional piece.

This was a very compelling and emotional story. I loved the way repetition and humor were used as tools in the narrative. The audiobook narrator (Chipo Chung) was absolutely incredible and brought a rhythm to the story with the way they repeated words with various intonations.

Bulawayo did a beautiful job of crafting this intricate historical fiction. I am glad I read this immediately following Animal Farm. Such an interesting juxtaposition. There were so many characters followed in this story, but I was most invested in Destiny's and my heart felt all the emotions. *insert tears*

Rep: All Zimbabwean cast.

CWs: Violence, genocide, war, rape, police brutality, murder, colonisation, death, gun violence, grief, misogyny, sexual assault, torture, blood, classism, sexual violence, religious bigotry, sexism, injury/injury detail, child death, gore, physical abuse, racism. Moderate: suicide (off-page action, on-page mention), xenophobia, mass shooting, death of parent, animal death, body horror, cursing, homophobia/homomisia, slavery, panic attacks, fire/fire injury, vomit. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Gun violence, War, Colonisation, Violence, Rape, Police brutality, Murder, Death, and Misogyny

olivialambert97's review

challenging dark funny hopeful informative reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.5

 Powerful and poetically written

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Mass/school shootings, Colonisation, Genocide, Gun violence, and Murder

Moderate: Violence, War, and Rape

differentsisters's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.5

 I see what the author was trying to do. Once I got use to the inclusion of Zimbabwean dialect, the book was readable. What became tiring was the heavy heavy use of repetition (a whole page of just the word take). I could see why some uses of repetition was used, but it became tiresome and felt like an editor needed to cut at least a hundred pages of repetition. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Sexual assault, Torture, Sexual harassment, Physical abuse, Mass/school shootings, Grief, Violence, Death, Sexual violence, Rape, Misogyny, Classism, Blood, War, Religious bigotry, Gun violence, Gore, and Colonisation

rhi_'s review against another edition

challenging dark slow-paced

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

0.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Sexism, Homophobia, Misogyny, Xenophobia, Classism, Colonisation, Police brutality, Gun violence, Violence, and War

Moderate: Sexual violence and Rape

thesapphiccelticbookworm's review against another edition

challenging dark funny reflective medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Body horror, Animal death, Death, Violence, Colonisation, Sexism, Torture, Religious bigotry, Murder, and Genocide

Moderate: Rape

Minor: Homophobia