Reviews tagging 'Xenophobia'

American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins

19 reviews

lwelch94's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring sad tense medium-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Death of parent, Pedophilia, Police brutality, Rape, Sexual harassment, Child death, Murder, Violence, Racism, Sexual assault, Xenophobia, Abortion, Grief, Miscarriage, Suicide attempt, Deportation, Gun violence, Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, and Trafficking

ameliabedeliaful's review against another edition

adventurous reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Xenophobia, Violence, and Sexual assault

ri_lei_gh's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Sexual violence, Rape, Grief, Death, Blood, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, and Gun violence

Moderate: Miscarriage and Xenophobia

boba_n_books's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Simultaneously I have so many thoughts on this novel but am struggling for words to describe my feelings. I truly felt as though I were along for the ride throughout Lydia and Luca’s journey to the United States. Written in 2020, this is such a timely book that sometimes makes you think this happened years ago… and yet it is still happening today. Cummins manages to portray hope and passion and resilient survival while showcasing the stark reality of migrants. This is a novel I believe we should all read to get a clear picture of what exactly immigrants go through in this terrible journey, putting ourselves in their shoes to contemplate what we would do in the same situation. American Dirt is both beautiful and horrific, and it is without a doubt important. I am sure it will be a classic for years to come. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual harassment, Murder, Violence, Child death, Sexual assault, Death, Xenophobia, Rape, and Death of parent

Moderate: Hate crime, Suicidal thoughts, and Gun violence

____emily____'s review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Death, and Violence

Moderate: Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Police brutality, and Rape

Minor: Xenophobia, Blood, and Trafficking

cfpierce's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad slow-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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Murder, Violence, Toxic relationship, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Grief, Death of parent, Death, and Child death

Moderate: Xenophobia, Racism, Pregnancy, Miscarriage, and Gun violence

lauraruzgas's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Death of parent, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Murder, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Violence, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Abandonment, Body shaming, Bullying, Emotional abuse, and Hate crime

saratonin_stories's review against another edition

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

Read Myriam Gurba’s review and David Bowles 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Miscarriage, Rape, Sexual assault, Trafficking, Violence, and Xenophobia

domtheknight's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

I feel that I can't rate this book because I'm extremely conflicted about many things.  I read it because someone picked it for a book club I'm in; otherwise I would not have picked it up based on description.  If I hadn't felt that I should finish it in order to participate in book club, I would have put it down almost immediately, and at many additional times throughout the story.  This book was not for me.

As for whether it's for anybody... from a technical writing standpoint, like in terms of making good sentences with words that sound and feel a certain way, Jeanne Cummins has skills.  It's bare and factual for the most part, but every paragraph is screaming in grief, underneath.  Grief, and horror and desperation.  It's creepy in that way, and sometimes that's good and what is right for the story.  But given the subject matter and the author, it honestly crossed the "violence for violence sake and not to further the story" line many times.  

The point of this story, having sat on this review overnight, seemed to be everything that can go wrong will be more awful than you can imagine.  I don't know why you tell that story.  There's no character growth.  Is the point to generate sympathy for immigrants?  Is the point to just be horror?  I think there's too much grief to be horror, but it's not really a grief book either.  It didn't feel like a horror book and it wasn't marketed as horror, but that's the ultimate end story I get from it.  I never cried, I just felt numb.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Grief, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mass/school shootings, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Trafficking, Police brutality, and Infertility

I'm not sure I got all the warnings. This book is very dark and fairly graphic about it, the plot is that a woman sees 16 members of her family shot (this is in the first couple paragraphs), manages to save her son, and then must run. They are in Mexico, they take various migrant paths, with some migrants coming from further south countries. There are gangs and violence and Lydia basically decides they need to go to the USA fairly early on and the rest of the story is whether or not they make it, plus some details about situations their fellow migrants are running from. In some cases the details left off the page felt worse than what was on the page.