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primrosecat's review
informative
inspiring
tense
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
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Racial slurs
useyourgoodeye's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
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
This was an amazing book. I didn't know much at all about the Tulsa riots and having the perspectives of the characters was great! If you like mysteries and history, read this now!!!?
Content Warnings
Moderate: Car accident, Classism, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Death, Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Violence, Domestic abuse, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Gun violence, Mental illness, and Murder
sarahcrowell's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Racism, Fire/Fire injury, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Murder, Racial slurs, Blood, Gore, and Hate crime
ashleyj_reads's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
Such good writing and addressing the social concerns of both timelines.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs and Racism
Moderate: Death, Murder, and Police brutality
bseigel's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
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? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Gun violence, and Violence
Minor: Sexual assault
emily_high's review
adventurous
emotional
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
It would get 5 stars if Rowan wasn't insufferable throughout the whole book. William had character development, while Rowan stayed the same, annoying character.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs and Racism
Moderate: Violence
audreyrose12's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs and Racism
amandalorianxo's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Black men and women are dying now for the same reasons they were in 1921. We have to speak up. Wow. Even though this book is five years old, the potency behind this story and what is going on currently & in Tulsa back in 1921 are extremely important to continue discussing. I am ashamed to admit that this was not an event that heavily focused on in my education growing up. I learned a lot even though this is a work of fiction and the body that we discover with Rowan and Chase is not who I expected. This should be required reading for either middle and or high school students.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism
Moderate: Body horror, War, Violence, Torture, and Racial slurs
Minor: Blood and Death
sarahaf712's review
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Sexual assault, Murder, Racial slurs, Violence, Blood, Car accident, Medical trauma, and Racism
Moderate: Classism, Misogyny, Rape, Fire/Fire injury, Physical abuse, and Police brutality
Minor: Torture
e_flah's review
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
0.25
Dreamland Burning is a challenge book to review in a lot of ways. The prose was propulsive from the first page but couldn't quite distract from the number of large problems I had with the story and its execution.
After reading about a 100 pages, I looked up the author in the hopes that knowing the perspective the book was written from could clarify some of the issues I was beginning to have with the story. As someone who shares the same background as the author -- white and a women -- I'm hesitant to say that certain people shouldn't write certain stories as it's really not my position to weigh in on that. I did notice repeatedly throughout the book that race and racism were positioned in ways that indicated a surface-level acknowledgement of racism but an unwillingness to really interrogate the roles that systemic racism plays in all of our lives. Failing to do the deeper work of unpacking systemic racism is something I notice white people, myself included at times, can be hesitant to do as it's impossible not to also grapple with how white people benefit from systemic racism even if they oppose it. The handling of racism in this book happened at a very surface level, which did the story it was trying to tell a true disservice.
A key example of this involves the main character of the 1920s narrative, Will.Will instigates a fight with a Black man, Clarence, at a speakeasy because the man is there with Will's crush, a white woman. The fight leads to Clarence later getting attacked by a group of white man and eventually dying from his injuries. Will feels a bit uncomfortable about the consequences of his actions, mainly because his crush publicly calls him out about it. He never meaningfully reflects on why he behaved in this way or whether he'd act this way in the future but the reader isn't supposed to worry about it as Will now knows two other Black people so his racist views are considered solved.
The characterization of the side characters who are people of color was incredibly flat. It was very clear to me that these characters were tokens for the story, rather than real people. Characters who appear a lot on the page, like Ruby, are defined by one or two attributes -- Ruby likes to cause trouble and enjoys pinching boys she likes -- that are just an outline of a personality but not a fully-fleshed character. An instance of this that made me particularly irate was the character of Arvind, a Black man who is implied to be unhoused, that Rowan meets at her job at the clinic. Arvind doesn't get much page time and is only given the briefest outline as a character but (view spoiler) Arvind is perhaps the defining example in Dreamland Burning of how the author used people of color within the story as tokens rather than portraying them as real people.
I also had some serious issues with the racial slurs used in this novel. The author's note says
After reading about a 100 pages, I looked up the author in the hopes that knowing the perspective the book was written from could clarify some of the issues I was beginning to have with the story. As someone who shares the same background as the author -- white and a women -- I'm hesitant to say that certain people shouldn't write certain stories as it's really not my position to weigh in on that. I did notice repeatedly throughout the book that race and racism were positioned in ways that indicated a surface-level acknowledgement of racism but an unwillingness to really interrogate the roles that systemic racism plays in all of our lives. Failing to do the deeper work of unpacking systemic racism is something I notice white people, myself included at times, can be hesitant to do as it's impossible not to also grapple with how white people benefit from systemic racism even if they oppose it. The handling of racism in this book happened at a very surface level, which did the story it was trying to tell a true disservice.
A key example of this involves the main character of the 1920s narrative, Will.
The characterization of the side characters who are people of color was incredibly flat. It was very clear to me that these characters were tokens for the story, rather than real people. Characters who appear a lot on the page, like Ruby, are defined by one or two attributes -- Ruby likes to cause trouble and enjoys pinching boys she likes -- that are just an outline of a personality but not a fully-fleshed character. An instance of this that made me particularly irate was the character of Arvind, a Black man who is implied to be unhoused, that Rowan meets at her job at the clinic. Arvind doesn't get much page time and is only given the briefest outline as a character but (view spoiler) Arvind is perhaps the defining example in Dreamland Burning of how the author used people of color within the story as tokens rather than portraying them as real people.
I also had some serious issues with the racial slurs used in this novel. The author's note says
"Some characters in the book use derogatory terms for African Americans and Native Americans, though not as freely as they would have in 1921. These words are ugly, offensive, and hateful, but I chose to include them because I felt that blunting the sharp edges of racism in a book about genocide would be a mistake."
Besides the fact that these slurs seem to mainly be used for shock value and to be a lazy way of characterizing some characters as racists, it felt wrong to see a member of an oppressing group use words with incredible historical + emotional baggage that have been used to strip away others' humanity. There are plenty of ways to convey the insidious horrors of racism without seeing these words over and over on the page in a book written by a white woman and published in 2017.
There were certainly more issues in Dreamland Burning that I didn't touch on here. I'll definitely be searching out other critical reviews of this book that look at this concepts with more depth. Overall, I would definitely not recommend reading this novel.
There were certainly more issues in Dreamland Burning that I didn't touch on here. I'll definitely be searching out other critical reviews of this book that look at this concepts with more depth. Overall, I would definitely not recommend reading this novel.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs and Racism
Moderate: Violence and Car accident