Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk, Michiel Heyns

1 review

brogan7's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad slow-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? Yes

This book is a very challenging read.  It talks about all of the cruelties one can imagine: white against black, male against female, parent against child, human against land.  But it is also very intense and nuanced, a deep study of one human mind, essentially, a woman in a struggle with herself and her entire world, a woman who didn't have the chances she wanted but then who also did inexplicably cruel things.  There are cracks of hope in this book, but perhaps more of them were within my thoughts than in the actual text.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Racism, Sexism, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Rape

There were some less-than-believable parts in this book, for instance when the husband dies, which seemed almost farcical.