Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

2 reviews

bay22's review

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Blood, Death, Hate crime, Medical content, Torture, Violence, Cannibalism, Police brutality, Child death, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Mass/school shootings, Murder, Racism, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Ableism, and Grief

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Emotional abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, Body shaming, Bullying, Animal death, Classism, Death of parent, Sexual assault, Homophobia, Addiction, and Child abuse

Minor: Eating disorder and Fatphobia

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