Reviews tagging 'Genocide'

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

14 reviews

emptzuu's review against another edition

Given its 4.40-star rating on Goodreads and numerous glowing reviews, I had high expectations for this book. However, it turned out to be based on the Sixties Scoop, an event fraught with pain and suffering. I found the representation of real-world Native children's trauma in "The House in the Cerulean Sea" deeply troubling. This book transforms the unbearable trauma—encompassing both the literal and cultural murder—of these children into a simplistic tale where the fantasy version of such horrific foster homes is portrayed positively. 

The author himself acknowledged this in a quote:

“I didn’t want to co-opt, you know, a history that wasn’t mine. I’m a cis white dude, so I can’t ever really go through something like what those children had to go through. So I sat down and I was like, I’m just going to write this as a fantasy.”

Despite being fully aware of the sensitive nature of the history he was touching upon, Klune created a story that trivializes the real and ongoing suffering of Indigenous children and their communities. These children were forcibly separated from their families and subjected to torture, sexual abuse, and murder as part of cultural genocide. Klune profits from a narrative that glosses over the severe and lasting impacts of these atrocities, which continued into the mid-1990s, on Indigenous people who still face systemic oppression today.

Additionally, the book is quite depressing. It follows a lonely man with a miserable life, working in a toxic environment, and disliked by everyone around him—including his cat, boss, coworkers, neighbors, and even the bus driver. He lives in a perpetually rainy city and perpetually forgets his umbrella. This gloomy narrative is masked in overly sweet language, lacking any nuance or real consideration of historical and systemic oppression. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism and Genocide

iane_reads's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective relaxing sad fast-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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Racism, Child abuse, Mental illness, Body shaming, Abandonment, Grief, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Bullying, Gaslighting, Confinement, Fatphobia, and Racial slurs

Minor: Car accident, Sexual content, Violence, Emotional abuse, Cursing, Hate crime, Genocide, Fire/Fire injury, Chronic illness, Death of parent, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Self harm, and Medical content

linde13's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted relaxing 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? Yes

5.0

For context: as much as I love to read, I rarely buy books. The few books I buy tend to be nonfiction that I've read through the library and are useful enough that I want to refer back to; everything else, I'm normally happy to check out from the library and read once or twice. I haven't bought a fiction book in years.

I bought this one immediately after I read it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia

Moderate: Child abuse, Fatphobia, Confinement, Body shaming, and Cursing

Minor: Cannibalism, Death of parent, Body horror, Gore, Blood, Physical abuse, and Genocide

I added the body shaming/fatphobia tags because Linus is sensitive about his own weight for most of the book. Nobody else comments on it, except for the kids in a matter-of-fact and non-insulting way. Everything else is merely alluded to, either by Lucy (the Antichrist character) in comments that he makes for shock value that are all played for laughs (Blood/Body horror/Gore/Cannibalism) or as part of characters' backstories (Child abuse/Confinement/Death of parent/Genocide/Physical abuse).

fanboyriot's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

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

Read For:

Fantasy

Slow Burn

Found Family

Idiots in Love

Happy Ending

Think Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children vibes but kinda queer.  I just felt kinda neutral about it.  The humor was okay, the characters were okay, and the setting was kinda meh.  I just felt like I had to force myself to keep reading and if I didn’t already own the book I would have stopped.  Also, I thought there would be more queer rep to be honest so that was kinda disappointing.  Not to mention the fatphobia.

I wasn’t going to read this given the reviews I’ve been seeing recently, however, I already own the first two books so I figured I’d see if it was as bad as some of the reviews were saying.  And honestly, I just didn’t understand the hype about it.  Even not knowing what the book was based on it was barely a 3-star rating for me, it just fell flat to me.

However, learning that this was based on the Sixties Scoop and how the author decided to turn what was a cruel and tragic piece of history he read about on Wikipedia about how the Canadian government removed a bunch of indigenous children from their literal homes and away from their family only to be adopted to white, middle-class families and he then took that information and basically turned it into a happy little fantasy where the kids live not in an “orphanage” but a “home” like, dude, why?

This kind of thing is still something native people are dealing with and as a white person, it should not be something you’re involved in like this.  In America the Supreme Court literally is going to be voting soon on overturning ICWA so states can regain control to remove Native children from their homes and families, this isn’t just some fantasy.  This story could have been written way better and in a way that did romanticize trauma and make light of a literal genocide.

I just wouldn’t recommend this one.  There are some links on where I got my information from if you’re interested along with two reviews I think do a better job of explaining this than I did.

Links:

Source: https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A617930246/ITBC?u=uvictoria&sid=bookmark-ITBC&xid=0efbabda

Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixties_Scoop

Helpful Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4032060130

Another Helpful Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3601407534

Rep: Achillean, Queer MC

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Racism, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Fatphobia, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Religious bigotry, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Death of parent, Ableism, Animal cruelty, Classism, Grief, Homophobia, and Violence

Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Body horror, Cannibalism, Murder, Death, Animal death, and Blood

daisiesandbees's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful reflective medium-paced

• 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: Forced institutionalization

Minor: Death of parent, Violence, Physical abuse, and Genocide

barefootbetsy's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny hopeful inspiring mysterious 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? Yes

5.0

A lovely read. Likely relatable for anyone who has been treated as an “other” (it was for me, at least) and there are parallels in the real world for such “orphanages” — the group homes that disabled children are placed in are similar. Run mainly by non-disabled people, not understanding the needs of the children who live there… 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Confinement, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, and Genocide

Minor: Death of parent

honeywine's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

One of the best, most hopeful books I’ve read in a while. I read it in only a few days, staying up too late in order to finish. 

I marked genocide as a content warning because

this book deals heavily with the assimilation of minority (magic) children into the world of the colonizer

. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation and Genocide

Moderate: Racism, Forced institutionalization, Child abuse, Confinement, and Abandonment

amberrenfrey's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Physical abuse, Forced institutionalization, Abandonment, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Genocide

Minor: Body horror, Homophobia, Violence, Animal cruelty, Blood, Confinement, Cursing, Alcohol, Cannibalism, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

bookishchef's review against another edition

adventurous funny hopeful fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

So I gave this a 4,5 when I originally read it. 

But I have since then v much changed my mind about TJ Klune and whether I condone him taking the Sixties Scoop as a form of inspiration. 

So now it's 2 stars. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism and Xenophobia

Moderate: Body shaming, Child abuse, Forced institutionalization, Hate crime, Confinement, Fatphobia, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Animal death, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Death of parent, Genocide, Grief, and Physical abuse

leighmayon's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad 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: Fire/Fire injury, Confinement, and Child abuse

Moderate: Body shaming

Minor: Emotional abuse, Cannibalism, Toxic relationship, Genocide, Murder, Sexual content, Confinement, Death, Cursing, and Excrement