Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

163 reviews

corriejn's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Racial slurs, Colonisation, Rape, Physical abuse, Forced institutionalization, Child abuse, Sexual violence, Racism, Addiction, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Slavery, Trafficking, Death of parent, Sexual assault, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, and Sexual harassment

cuddlygryphon's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Classism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Death, Domestic abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, Adult/minor relationship, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Grief, Hate crime, Kidnapping, Murder, Physical abuse, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Toxic relationship, Violence, Sexism, Self harm, Slavery, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Sexual assault, and Rape

Moderate: Colonisation, Addiction, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Abandonment, Abortion, Blood, Infertility, Miscarriage, and Misogyny

Minor: Religious bigotry and Police brutality

ednareads's review

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Racial slurs, Violence, Physical abuse, Murder, Infidelity, and Child abuse

chardkey's review

emotional funny informative inspiring reflective sad 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 books I have read in a long time and it might be my new favorite.  Such a powerful story of a young women figuring out who she wants to be while discovering where she comes from.  The book traces the lineage of one family all the way back to when they first arrived in American and their Native American roots as well.  This story is captivating, heartbreaking, triumphant and made me laugh out loud many times.  The writing is so beautiful.  I highly recommend making the commitment to read this one!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Forced institutionalization, Addiction, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Colonisation, Slavery, Drug use, and Racism

wonderwoman11's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective sad 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

This is absolutely without a doubt one of the best books I have ever read. It’s a very emotional read, and there’s some really challenging content in it, but for hundreds of pages, I could not put it down. I became so invested in the stories being told and I truly didn’t want it to end. I will be recommending it to everyone I know.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Child abuse, Rape, Physical abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Slavery, Violence, Racial slurs, and Pedophilia

Moderate: Child death

shoshthemost's review

emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia, Racism, Classism, Incest, Abortion, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Child abuse, Colonisation, and Rape

heidipolkissa82's review

challenging dark emotional informative reflective medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Incest, Rape, Slavery, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, and Pedophilia

ruffian23's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective slow-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Incest, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Slavery, Torture, Classism, Grief, Hate crime, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Violence, Child abuse, Addiction, Child death, Sexual content, and Drug abuse

welkinvault's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative 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? It's complicated

3.5

This multigenerational tome was chosen purely as it was recommended by a book youtuber I follow.  I really wanted to like this, but it was though I was reading a different novel to them.  I started with this 30 hour audio but after a few hours bought the book too as I thought it was my fault that I found huge chunks of the novel long, flat and two dimensional (even though the narration was very good). 

The historical sections were interesting (although too much sexual violence reported almost in passing with little effort to show the impact on the survivors or the community).  The more contemporary main storyline of the very immature, precocious, Ailey and her romances was lengthly and not engaging.   As a coming of age story I found I was largely uninterested in her growth or her ridiculous reasonings for her prickly and almost combative realations with her school/undergraduate peers.  

That is until about the 550 page mark when the book started to tie together all the threads, Ailey finally gained some maturity and the emotional resonance that was missing from the first chunk of the novel was delivered (especially in the historical scenes).  At that point  I found I could not put the book down.  

The character of Root was fasciating, and I did want to know what happened to Nick, but for such a sprawling choppy work the author did a great job in tying up so many threads at the conclusion of the novel. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual violence, Child death, Colonisation, Incest, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Sexual assault, Slavery, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, and Rape

sidekicksam's review against another edition

emotional

• 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

4.75

I've started and re-started writing this review a dozen times or so, and I still am lost for words for this review. Where do you start after completing this intimidatingly big book? So I decided to keep it very short. 

This book deserves all the praise it gets, because it is magnificent. 

As a child of mixed-heritage, as well as experiencing the effects of multi-generational trauma still, this book really hit different. The book portrays the 200-year story of this family, affected by the various events and consequences of history, so eloquently. With themes of multi-generational trauma, racism, colonialism, and more, this book is a must-read. 

The large cast of characters and the non-chronological order of the book makes it a bit more difficult to follow (especially because I couldn't read it in one go), but I am looking forward to reading this again in the future and discovering new things to love. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, and Slavery