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alpettit's review
- 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
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
- 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
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
- 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
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.economydreams's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Self harm, Rape, Physical abuse, Torture, Slavery, Sexism, Kidnapping, Violence, Suicide, Hate crime, Death, Blood, Racism, Racial slurs, Sexual violence, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic friendship, and Misogyny
Moderate: Vomit, Medical content, and Grief
trashely's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Graphic: Kidnapping, Racism, Sexual violence, Physical abuse, Slavery, Suicide, Rape, Domestic abuse, Gore, Vomit, Death of parent, Racial slurs, Violence, Torture, Hate crime, Death, Self harm, Murder, and Trafficking
robynrambles's review against another edition
- 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
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
- 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
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”
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
hiagovinicius's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Racism, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Bullying, Torture, Grief, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Self harm, Toxic friendship, Gaslighting, Toxic relationship, War, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Chronic illness, Classism, Death, Violence, Murder, and Confinement
linde_ahobbit's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Graphic: Sexual assault, Self harm, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Rape, Slavery, Suicide, Physical abuse, Racism, and Violence
the_bookishmum's review against another edition
- 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
4.75
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Suicide attempt, Hate crime, Slavery, Violence, Racial slurs, Racism, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Racism, Rape, and Sexual assault
This book is not without its flaws but it is also a harrowing look into what slavery would have been like through the eyes of a more modern black woman after she has been transported back in time. It’s never really explained why she goes back in time, there is an ancestral link to the people there but beyond that it isn’t clear. Throughout her experiences, Dana is changed. There were moments in this book that were absolutely heartbreaking and the truth that Dana uncovered about her family heritage is one that both she as the character and myself as the reader were unprepared for. She had assumed that the past paralleled her life where she was from but the truth was far worse. This is not a lighthearted read but it is an important one.