Reviews with content warning for Sexual violence - Rainbow Milk

Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

sandysmith's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad 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

3.75

Initially, I had an issue getting into the book as the initial chapters were written in the characters' dialect, so potentially, this might have been better if reading via audible. Once I got to Jesse's part, the reading itself became easier, although not necessarily easier in terms of the content. Jessie is a young black man brought up as a Jehovah witness. He is disowned due to being gay and an incident with another member of his church. He finds himself outcast from his church and family moving to London, being an artist and making a living by being a gay prostitute. The sex scenes are graphic. SPOILER I thought the relationship between him and Owen was beautifully developed and loved how they came back to each other. It's a challenging read, but ultimately, it makes you think about the sex industry and issues relating to acceptance, race, racism and religious bigotry. It's a thought-provoking and intensive interesting read

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shanmariereads's review

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challenging dark hopeful reflective sad medium-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

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withlivjones's review

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challenging dark sad slow-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? No

3.75

This book had a really slow start, but I’m glad I stayed with it because the second half was brilliant. This is a brutal, vivid depiction of being both black and queer in Britain, spanning from the early 2000s to the mid-2010s, as well as a prologue from the POV of a Windrush migrant in the 1950s (which seems irrelevant at first but does play a big part in the end of the book, I promise!) Mendez does a fantastic job of evoking the atmosphere and setting of the Black Country and London, and particularly the London chapters are very reminiscent of Zadie Smith’s NW in the way the city is depicted through the various characters who live there. While the first half felt rather disjointed, I loved how all the pieces eventually came together for the novel’s conclusion. I am honestly shocked that this was Mendez’s debut novel as they’ve already really honed their narrative voice, and I’m looking forward to whatever they put out next.

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arlaubscher's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-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

3.75

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maddb_96's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny inspiring sad medium-paced

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? It's complicated

4.0

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emmalouisereads's review

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challenging hopeful medium-paced

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? It's complicated

3.0

I didn’t particularly enjoy reading this book. It contains a lot of sex between people with age gaps that I think aren’t great (aka the younger is being taken advantage of in this particular case). I think it’s important to read stories like this one though, and I’m glad I read it. The use of the dialect of the different people throughout the book is really interesting, even if it was a struggle to follow some of the speech. The writing is very descriptive and you can almost smell and taste some of the things described by the writing.

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lidz_2tc's review

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emotional hopeful informative sad medium-paced

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

3.75

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lenakathryn's review against another edition

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emotional reflective fast-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

4.0

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sauvageloup's review

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challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad 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

3.75

I thought I might struggle to get into this since it's partly historical and I thought it might be a bit heavy, but I've raced through it

Pros:
- gripping and interesting writing throughout, which hooked me in right away. felt enormous sympathy for Norman from the first pages and for Jesse as we got to know him.
- the characters were painted so vividly that it felt like non-fic at times, like I could look them up online
- Mendez doesn't balk at any of grim realities Jesse faced, the abuse, some of the sex, the homophobia and internalised racism. there's never any shame put on Jesse for his choices by any of the decent characters and it really creates empathy
- I wanted so very badly for Jesse to do well, though I was afraid he wouldn't as there were so many ways he could've gone wrong - overdose, AIDS, or killed by a client. he wasn't like any other character I've read and I loved him
- it was strange but good to hear about the west Midlands in a book, the names of Dudley, Wolverhampton, merry Hill shopping centre, etc. all being familiar. and learning a bit more history of the area from a non-White perspective
- the book is also firmly placed in time through the music, a lot of which I didn't know, but still created an atmosphere. moving towards the 2000s felt like coming into familiar territory as I knew much more of those ones.
- as books like these always do, it made me think about my whiteness and what I can do to try to avoid the racism, personal and systemic, that Jesse faces.
- I did like how the book was structured, with the kind of prologue flashback of Norman's life at the start which eventually linked to Jesse.
- the book also raises the issue of beating kids as punishment, threatened by Norman and brutally carried out by Graham on Jesse. it's not confronted head on exactly, but I think it was clear it didn't work.
- oh and I did appreciate that there wasn't any biphobia, since bi people sometimes seem to slip by the wayside, but here were main characters and never dismissed or not included or acknowledged.

cons:
- I wish we had seen a bit more of Norman, since i liked him a lot, and it was tragic (but understandable I guess) that Jesse didn't get to meet his father.
- I felt that the shift from Jesse being 'Not Okay' to him being 'Okay' was too sudden, skipped over in time hops and summerised through flashbacks. After all of Jesse's suffering, to have seen that growth and recovery in the present tense would've been more rewarding I think, though I suppose Mendez thought it was the boring part of Jesse's story, his stay with Derrick, finding Owen and Ginika again, etc. I felt a bit robbed that we didn't get that part of the story.
- the part with Jean-Alain and Nick's dinner party right at the end, threw me a little too, but I suppose it was for the purpose of Jesse having that chat with J-A about the past. did feel stuck on the end though, like it was an extra scene randomly shoved into the main story.

overall, though, it was hugely readable and gripping, with a lot of important narratives and ideas in there, stories which haven't been the focus in the past, and highlighting the everyday racism and homophobia people still experience.

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