Reviews tagging 'Classism'

Assembly by Natasha Brown

29 reviews

illuminazione's review

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

5.0

The narrator of this tour de force of a novel is an ostensibly successful Black British woman. She has made it in a predominantly white patriarchal corporate world. A promotion is on the horizon and her rich white boyfriend just invited her to  family garden party. As she preaches to young girls that they, too, can get where she is, she feels her world to be a constant struggle and her 'dream' a lie, the success nothing more than a cage society's systems keep her in. When she receives a life-changing medical diagnosis, her inner turmoil reaches a breaking point.

The visceral and inventive writing style does not sugarcoat exactly how trapped the narrator feels and makes the reader feel with her. The issues discussed - racism, sexism, classism and sexual harassment -  are portrayed so real and inescapable, you understand how she comes to the decision she makes in the end.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism

Moderate: Sexism, Terminal illness, Sexual harassment, and Classism

felicityebhaslin's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Terminal illness, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, and Classism

Moderate: Cancer, Death, Hate crime, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Police brutality, and Colonisation

Minor: Racial slurs

mackenzi's review

challenging emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.75

 Contemplative and sad. There are a lot of very relateable moments which made me feel hollow, though on some level much of Assembly seems so distant and out of reach. More than anything this book highlights the feelings I've had of trying to reach out and show my perspective, illustrate the magnitude of institutional racism, built into the system from the ground up, to people in my life, and have them unable to see beyond their individual selves, unable to see the systems that build every part of society. That gap sometimes seems insurmountable. And how do you construct an identity in that world, in their world, when you have that knowledge? Trying to force oneself into that worldview means you're sanding yourself down from a full human being into a shadow of one. Both pain and pleasure leech away until there's nothing of either. At their refusal or inability to see, you have to pretend along with them if you want to have a personal relationship. You have to pretend to enjoy being hollow. And Assembly is a story of someone who has done that for her whole life, even while feeling how soulless and impersonal it is, how deeply depressed she's become, while feeling how she's still a part of that imperialist, colonialist machine, be she successful or failing within it. 

It's prettily written and I enjoyed the style. The jumping between the present moment and thoughts of other events, the past, summarizing feelings, drawing conclusions, all in an uncertain voice which halts and interupts itself frequently. It's an easy style for my brain to read, very similar to my own thought process. And the style conjures a distant, detatched, anxious yet resigned perspective. It's very well constructed.

I thought it was funny how most of the top reviews for this book on Goodreads are white men. How they praise it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Colonisation, and Classism

leoniefnk's review against another edition

reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.75

This is the definition of literary girl dinner. The tangibility that Brown paints into my ears is at times gorgeous, but mostly a source of unease. Everybody should read this.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Terminal illness, Xenophobia, Colonisation, and Classism

Minor: Slavery, Violence, Sexual harassment, War, and Deportation

jennanaps's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Chronic illness, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, and Medical content

Moderate: Hate crime, Medical content, Colonisation, and Classism

rainbowarpaint's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense 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? No

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Sexual harassment, and Classism

Moderate: Cancer

schorlett's review

challenging dark reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Slavery, Alcohol, and Classism

lady_bountiful's review

challenging slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cancer, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Medical content, and Classism

hypocrisis's review against another edition

dark reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

hard to stomach, in a good way.
more like poetry than a novel, really enjoyed the style. natasha brown knows people and how to cut to their core quickly.
there are many great quotes from this book, yet this one found its way into this unfairly brief review simply because i opened my notes app immediately upon reading it, starting the collection of quotations from assembly.

p.21
"Victimhood is a choice," Rach said. Part opinion, part mantra.

while the narrator is describing her best friend here, as the book unfolds it becomes apparent that - although they are not affected in the same way and navigate this differently - both women repress their true feelings, in the narrator's case going so for as to alter her personality, to survive an inhospitable environment (until she chooses to stop surviving).

edit: I still find myself thinking a lot about this book and i don't think it was entirely random of me to elaborate on this particular quote, though it must've been subconscious at the time which I'm slightly embarrassed about. Only now do i realise how much of the protagonists' perspective is revealed within those sentences and how they literally foreshadow the plot.

I can't do this book justice... but if you're thinking about reading it you really should!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Racism, Sexism, Terminal illness, and Classism

Moderate: Hate crime, Racial slurs, Suicidal thoughts, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Colonisation

anneklein's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense fast-paced

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

4.25

holy shit

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Hate crime, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Medical content, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, and Classism

Moderate: Xenophobia