Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

172 reviews

ahoyitsjoy's review against another edition

challenging dark sad 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? Yes

4.25

Absolutely harrowing read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Sexism, Slavery, Sexual assault, Blood, Child abuse, Racial slurs, Death, Death of parent, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Racism, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Suicide, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Bullying and Infidelity

Minor: Vomit, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Child death, and Animal cruelty

sniebel's review

dark emotional 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? It's complicated

4.5

Bit whacky pacing in the middle, but the ending really hammered home the story big time! Absolutely enthralling read!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Suicide, Slavery, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Self harm

scmiller's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense

4.0

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Content Warnings

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

samanthaleereads's review

adventurous dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense fast-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Self harm, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Death, Violence, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Torture, Cursing, Blood, Child abuse, Death of parent, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Sexism, Sexual violence, Slavery, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Addiction, Suicide attempt, Suicide, and Gun violence

Minor: Medical content, Vomit, Fire/Fire injury, and War

alpettit's review

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

A tough read but important. It explores the violence of slavery and the complicated relationships that can arise from it. It explores the boundaries of humanity. It explores the ethics of what is the norm versus what is right. This book will stick with me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Hate crime, Colonisation, Forced institutionalization, Emotional abuse, Violence, Slavery, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Drug abuse, Addiction, Self harm, Suicide attempt, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Vomit, Pregnancy, Suicide, Blood, and Child death

sophiesmallhands's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative tense 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Misogyny, Violence, Suicide, Racial slurs, Racism, Police brutality, Trafficking, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, Slavery, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Gun violence, Sexual violence, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Rape, Vomit, Suicide attempt, and Death of parent

Minor: Alcohol, Self harm, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, and Alcoholism

readingwithkaitlyn's review

dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

• 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

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Content Warnings

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.

celesteleila's review

challenging dark emotional 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

Kindred was the right name for this book. This story really dived into to the complicated ties and dynamics that surround Black people and the ancestral ties we carry to slavery. Dana’s story was illuminating because it was a more accurate portrayal of the antebellum South with all of its horrors and sadness. I found Dana to be a cold character who measures situation with a kind of dogged determination to carve her place on the plantation. Her challenge with meeting her ancestors was utterly complex and I think the physical manifestation of the scars on her body and Kevin’s gave her a true connection to the circumstances of the time. I especially love Butler’s writing - her story is captivating, horrifying and insightful all at once. This book reminded me that the ties between past and present are stronger than we think and throughout the book, Dana noted some of the origins of culture that continued into her day. All in all this book was incredible although hard to digest at points. But upon reflection, I think that’s the point to show reality, truth and authenticity of a time that some try so hard to actively erase. Read it and learn. Read it and be challenged. Read it to learn and to hear the voices lost to time that were so powerful and are connected in many ways to the world we live in today. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Rape, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Murder, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Self harm, Sexual assault, Slavery, Death of parent, and Suicide

robynrambles's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Misogyny, Slavery, Sexual violence, Emotional abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Hate crime, Kidnapping, Suicide attempt, Self harm, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Rape, and Violence

mromie's review

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

• 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

Octavia Butler, mother of Science Fiction, blends Black feminist pedagogy seamlessly into this fictional tale of a black female writer Dana from 1976 who is mysteriously transported to 1824 antebellum Maryland at times when her white ancestor and enslaver Rufus is in life-or-death situations. 

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”

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Content Warnings

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