Reviews tagging 'Self harm'

Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

10 reviews

wanderingtones's review

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? N/A
• 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: Murder, Hate crime, Violence, Classism, Racism, and Gore

Moderate: Suicide, Mass/school shootings, Abortion, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Police brutality, and Racial slurs

Minor: Mental illness, Torture, and Self harm

m_papaya's review

4.0

Bleak, violent, read in one sitting. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Gore, Torture, Self harm, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Racism, Murder, Mass/school shootings, Child death, and Abortion

Moderate: Bullying, Addiction, and Animal cruelty

Minor: Islamophobia

kananineko's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• 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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Child death, Hate crime, Mass/school shootings, Blood, Self harm, Gun violence, Abortion, Physical abuse, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Medical content, Medical trauma, Domestic abuse, Bullying, Racial slurs, Torture, Grief, Drug abuse, Addiction, Abandonment, Toxic relationship, Drug use, Suicide, and Gore

Minor: Islamophobia, War, Pregnancy, Chronic illness, Terminal illness, Cannibalism, and Cancer

daniellekat's review

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

3.5

Like all short story collections there were a few misses here for me, but overall the writing was strong and thought provoking. Stand out stories include: The Finkelstein 5, Zimmer Land (my favourite), Friday Black, and Light Spitter. I disliked that a few stories were somewhat connected. Having read the author’s novel Chain-Gang All-Stars, you can tell that he has a lot he wants to say. For me, the short story collection was more successful in achieving that goal despite being more disjointed. Each story felt more focused on a theme or topic where the novel tried to take on everything. It’s obvious he is a talented writer. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Mass/school shootings, Racism, Self harm, Abortion, Blood, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Bullying and Child death

Minor: Abandonment

lyssalandart's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Self harm, Suicide, and Violence

sarah984's review against another edition

dark reflective medium-paced

3.5

Some of the stories in this collection were phenomenal, visceral writing - speculative fiction at its very best - but the rest varied between forgettable and downright bad. I would say it's worth it for the good ones.

Favourites: Through the Flash, Zimmer Land, Friday Black, The Finkelstein Five

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Racism, Torture, Violence, Child death, and Racial slurs

Moderate: Self harm, Toxic friendship, Drug use, Ableism, Abortion, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Mass/school shootings, and Suicide

Minor: Classism, Homophobia, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Bullying, Cannibalism, and Child abuse

j_m_alexander's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-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

4.25

 Biting, gut-punching short stories that are frighteningly sad and darkly humorous at times. Like all short story collections, this collection is a bit of a mixed bag, some nearly perfect, others falling a slightly short by comparison. The collection started and finished particularly strong - that first short story was a haunting and powerful statement to start with, the final story while similarly startling finished with more of a lingering bitter-sweetness; truly perfect choices to book-end the collection. There were a few others in the latter half that I felt really built on one another in a way I really liked as well. Adjei-Brenyah makes an undeniable impact in a short amount of pages/words, leaning toward dystopian of the rather violent variety. Not every story hits quite a perfect balance but when they do, it's a real triumph and will keep you thinking about them long afterward.

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Child death, Cursing, Mass/school shootings, Death, Physical abuse, Body horror, Emotional abuse, Police brutality, Self harm, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Murder, Gun violence, and Racism

emily_mh's review against another edition

challenging dark medium-paced

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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Physical abuse, Abortion, Body horror, Child abuse, Mass/school shootings, Suicide, Murder, Violence, Domestic abuse, Self harm, Child death, Death, Cursing, Gun violence, and Torture

Moderate: Gore, Body shaming, Medical content, Blood, Racial slurs, Injury/Injury detail, Police brutality, Ableism, Abandonment, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Cannibalism, and Rape

Minor: Misogyny, Antisemitism, Pregnancy, Toxic relationship, Fatphobia, Vomit, Cancer, Islamophobia, and Death of parent

Lynching, colourism, loss of a loved one (including a child), eugenics, menstruation, trampling, sick parent, homophobic slur, nuclear bombing

booksthatburn's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense 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? It's complicated

4.5

FRIDAY BLACK is a finely constructed collection of stories which range from simply invoking a certain kind of Black and American existence, to ones where the premise is inextricable from the intersection of these identities. 

Some of them have not literally happened but feel like they could if reality got just a little bit worse (or, more awfully, like they’re already here). Others are more speculative, requiring some shift in reality in order to be plausible, or being altogether impossible. In all of them, the relevant social and existential rules are deftly conveyed to build tiny pockets of a different space, in which a story is told that believes its own premise unabashedly and wholeheartedly. 

Three of the stories have a shared underlying reality, but I’m not certain whether the others are meant to be connected with them or not. None of the premises are mutually exclusive, but a few would definitely be oddly paired if they canonically coexist. My favorites are “Zimmer Land” (for the way it shows the precarious position of a marginalized employee in a job which objectifies his existence even as it exploits his identity), Friday Black” (for making shopping feel like a zombie story), and “Through the Flash” (for unflinchingly capturing the potential and inevitability of brutality in a certain kind of time loop).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Blood, Cannibalism, Child death, Death, Gore, Murder, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, and Violence

Moderate: Animal death, Bullying, Cursing, Drug use, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Hate crime, Medical content, Misogyny, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Torture

Minor: Death of parent, Vomit, Sexual assault, Pregnancy, Homophobia, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, and Abortion

horizonous's review against another edition

The collection opens up with a gut punch of a story called "THE FINKELSTEIN 5" and I highly recommend it, beyond that I was more or less completely lost, or in the case of "LARK STREET", repulsed. To me that story striked me as blatantly pro-life with a teenage couple who decides to have an abortion and the two aborted foetuses coming back to guilt-trip the guy for a night.. After that I kept reading because I thought there must be something more to this collection with all the praise it gets, but when I couldn't even get through its titular story I decided, this wasn't for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Racism, Self harm, and Violence

Moderate: Blood, Child death, Gore, Gun violence, and Murder