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sabripolin's review against another edition
- 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? Yes
4.5
Minus points (?) for all characters’ lack of FREAKING OUT and Dana’s seemingly emotionless disposition all throughout. We also don’t really get a “why” to why this all happened or what triggered her first transportation.
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Racism, Torture, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Racial slurs, Physical abuse, Slavery, Violence, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Pregnancy, Suicide attempt, Sexual assault, Rape, Murder, Ableism, Self harm, Fire/Fire injury, and Medical content
_natalie_'s review against another edition
- 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? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Death, Torture, Racial slurs, Slavery, Ableism, Racism, Physical abuse, Violence, Sexual assault, and Sexual harassment
Moderate: Infidelity, Alcoholism, Rape, Suicide, Grief, Self harm, and Blood
salemander's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Slavery, Suicide attempt, Torture, Gun violence, Trafficking, Ableism, Death, Emotional abuse, Murder, Grief, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Sexual violence, Confinement, Gore, and Child death
scmiller's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Rape, Colonisation, Death, Domestic abuse, Death of parent, Deportation, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Miscarriage, Self harm, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexism, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, Torture, Toxic friendship, Trafficking, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Ableism, Body horror, Gore, Child abuse, and Kidnapping
Moderate: Drug use, Medical content, Pregnancy, Vomit, Pedophilia, Abandonment, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Medical trauma, Blood, and Drug abuse
jodean's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Graphic: Torture, Slavery, Infidelity, Violence, Sexual harassment, Racial slurs, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Blood, Racism, Medical content, Kidnapping, Child abuse, Suicide, Self harm, Hate crime, Forced institutionalization, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Pregnancy, Classism, Death, Suicide attempt, and Trafficking
Moderate: Medical trauma, Drug use, Ableism, Sexual violence, Vomit, Rape, Police brutality, Grief, Sexual assault, Gun violence, Fire/Fire injury, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Blood, Alcohol, Sexual content, and Murder
Minor: Infertility, Incest, and Miscarriage
introverted_reads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
Graphic: Ableism, Racism, Slavery, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Rape, and Suicide
Moderate: Classism, Sexual violence, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Pregnancy, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury
readingwithkaitlyn's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Graphic: Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Death, Racial slurs, Racism, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Domestic abuse, Sexual violence, Blood, Gore, Kidnapping, Sexual assault, Slavery, Torture, Misogyny, Medical content, Sexual harassment, and Murder
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Rape, Terminal illness, Fire/Fire injury, Ableism, Suicide, Child abuse, Self harm, and Death of parent
Minor: Child death, Gun violence, Cancer, Car accident, Colonisation, Alcohol, Fatphobia, Vomit, Animal cruelty, Antisemitism, Abandonment, Confinement, Genocide, and Incest
Mention of r slur, dismemberment.mromie's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
We do not live in a time so far removed from systems and acts of oppression, violence, sexual torture, and racism as many would prefer to believe. With the blurring of time through time travel, Butler reminds us that the time from enslavement period was only few generations before us and could have been us too. To this day, enslavement exists in parts of the world, in places of war, and in renamed forms in America.
Robert Crossley’s Reader’s Guide had insightful comments, including:
- Butler: Science fiction has long treated people who might or might not exist — ETs. Unfortunately, however, many of the same science-fiction writers who started us thinking about the possibility of extraterrestrial life did nothing to make us think about here-at-home human variation”
- Butler “has redrawn science fiction’s cultural boundaries…deployed the genre’s conventions to tell stories with a political and sociological edge to them, stories that speak to issues, feelings, and historical truths arising out of African-American experience. In centering her fiction on women who lack power and suffer abuse but are committed to claiming power over their own lives and to exercising that power harshly when necessary, Butler has not merely used science fiction as a “feminist didactic,” in Beverly Friend’s terminology, but she has generated her fiction out of a black feminist aesthetic.”
- time travel as a metaphor and medium; “traveling to the past is a dramatic means to make the past live, to get the reader to live imaginatively, in the recreated past, to grasp it as a felt reality rather than merely a learned abstraction”
- Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a metaphor for the exclusion of women from acts of creation
- subtle parallels between Rufus Weylin and Kevin Franklin, system of white supremacist culture
- first hand narratives of enslavement vs Hollywood retellings and novels that sanitize or glamorize it
- Kindred as the title, literary kinship with the memoirs of formerly enslaved peoples, “chained to her ancestral past by the genealogical link that requires her to keep the oppressive slave master alive until her own family is initiated”
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Racial slurs, Self harm, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Hate crime, Ableism, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Emotional abuse, Gore, Violence, Racism, Rape, Classism, Colonisation, and Murder
yourbookishbff's review against another edition
- 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? It's complicated
4.5
Butler consistently sows doubt in the reader: Is Dana's husband, Kevin, good enough to her, will he protect her, will he prioritize himself? Is Dana growing attached to Rufus, does she feel sorry for him, does she forgive him for his cruelty because she sees how he was raised? Do we become acclimated as Dana and Kevin do, do the horrors become loss horrible through exposure, do we become numb to it? What are we willing to sacrifice to save ourselves, a person we love, or a family member? Butler resists answering any of these questions, instead giving characters room to orbit around each other as they make their own decisions and shape their own histories.
This is a challenging and graphic read, but a fast-paced one that evidences Butler's place in the sci-fi/fantasy canon.
Graphic: Sexual assault, Physical abuse, Violence, Misogyny, Racism, Racial slurs, Pregnancy, Rape, Slavery, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide attempt, Trafficking, Suicide, Sexual violence, Self harm, and Murder
Moderate: Alcohol, Ableism, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma, Alcoholism, Child abuse, and Fatphobia
Slurs for disabled people are used (this was written and published in the 1970s and today's readers should be aware that these instances will go unchallenged on page). Fatphobia also goes unchallenged on page in the present-day (1970s) storyline.hotkoolaidpotato's review against another edition
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Racism, Slavery, Cursing, Bullying, Death of parent, Murder, Physical abuse, Death, and Racial slurs
Moderate: Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Murder, Blood, Grief, Sexual assault, Ableism, Alcoholism, Infidelity, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Self harm, Sexual harassment, Toxic relationship, and Violence
Minor: Fire/Fire injury and Rape