Reviews tagging 'Police brutality'

The Deluge by Stephen Markley

4 reviews

kkbray's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark hopeful informative sad tense 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? It's complicated

4.0

A truly disturbing look at how climate change and political unrest may alter our collective future. I knocked a star off because the ending felt rushed and unsatisfying to me. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Murder, Death, Xenophobia, Suicide, Police brutality, Violence, and Mass/school shootings

dolores153's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective 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? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Brutal. Do not read if you are already anxious about climate change or US politics.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, Blood, and Violence

Moderate: Body shaming, Fatphobia, Mass/school shootings, Police brutality, Terminal illness, Genocide, and Addiction

Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic, Stalking, Abortion, and Religious bigotry

apackage's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

An incredible book.  Probably the most important book I will ever read.  If you are human, you should read this book.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Mass/school shootings, Murder, Sexual content, Torture, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Pandemic/Epidemic, Vomit, Misogyny, Blood, Death of parent, Death, Gore, Islamophobia, War, Emotional abuse, Police brutality, Violence, Abortion, Xenophobia, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Addiction, Injury/Injury detail, Excrement, Cancer, Classism, and Hate crime

danaaliyalevinson's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

4.75

I honestly don’t know how to talk about this book. It’s astonishing and monumental in scope. It’s meticulously researched. The very undertaking of a story like this and finishing it not just in a way that makes sense, but in a way that is dramatically satisfying is in and of itself a huge achievement.

The characters are beautiful. Markley does a wonderful job at anchoring this story about a crisis that could seem too didactic for literary tension in very real and three dimensional characters. And through this inherent tying of these people that I grew to love to the climate crisis, otherwise didactic developments like the failure or success of a bill, or an extreme weather event, or a working group to draft legislation, suddenly take on hugely important meaning. Like, sometimes I was like, why am I crying that they’re forming a working group to draft legislation? It was because Markley so deftly and completely drew the characters and the ways their lives revolved around trying to solve this crisis, and the way their lives had also been affected by it. So global developments felt startlingly personal.

I did occasionally find myself wrestling with the almost early aughts disaster movie plotting that occasionally cropped up, and more than one instance of characters being saved by deus ex machina. I also sometimes felt that the unraveling of the social order was painted in broad strokes.

But at the end of the day, these quibbles pale in comparison to the strengths of this novel, which manages to be prophecy and path forward. And through the deep humanity of its characters, manages to take a topic that could feel dry, and instead makes it startlingly alive and human. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Antisemitism, Animal death, Cancer, Classism, Death, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Mass/school shootings, Violence, Blood, Hate crime, Murder, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Racism, Religious bigotry, Xenophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Gun violence, Colonisation, Drug abuse, and War