Reviews with content warning for Blood - Survive the Dome

Reviews tagging 'Blood'

Survive the Dome by Kosoko Jackson

9 reviews

sunsorbit's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.75

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amandalorianxo's review

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challenging dark hopeful 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

3.0

This felt a little Hunger Games esque in terms of plot and intention. Jamal is a seventeen year old who lives in Maryland. He is attending a BLM protest & wants to take footage of what is going on. Unfortunately, he’s stuck when an alarm rings to let the people of Baltimore know there would be a Dome set in place. No one can go in, no one can go out. The Dome itself is a milky white outline that prevents any electronic communication from happening. Jamal soon meets two other people as they try to figure out how to collapse this dome. The diversity - a black gay male character, two Latinx main characters (one is also not straight) was great but I could have done without the mini romance storyline. I also felt like the ending was a little too clean & could have been cut by a hundred ish pages. A lot of unnecessary filler & word repetition.

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1quillb's review

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tense slow-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

2.5

This book has a really good idea attached to it, but was executed very poorly. The editing needs some work—at one point Marco is referred to as Jamal by the narrator, and there’s a couple strange spellings of words—and the whole idea isn’t very believable. If a giant impenetrable dome surrounded a city and martial law went into affect, things like clubs and hotels wouldn’t still be open. That’s just not realistic. It would be like the Purge, not a regular Tuesday. I appreciate what Jackson was trying to do, it just wasn’t written in a way that made sense.

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standerson's review

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challenging tense medium-paced

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

2.5

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antonique_reads's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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taliahsbookshelf's review

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adventurous dark informative tense fast-paced

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

3.5

TL;DR: Ehhh. I think I would recommend this to everyone, but with the expectation to not expect anything going into it.

I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. It had a powerful narrative surrounding the struggles of POC in America, particularly when faced with police violence. Starting even before the very first word of the novel itself is read, readers are forced to confront, and acknowledge, the names of Black Americans who have died at the hands of the police. Pages upon pages, written in harsh reality, this can’t, and shouldn’t be ignored.

I do think everyone and their grandma should read this book, primarily because it provides a stark view into the reality of police violence and the structures of power that make this a continuous fight. Reading from the perspective of a Black gay teenager fighting to get the truth out there was poignant and moving.

However, I think that was the end of the power of this book for me. While that part of the story felt well written, pointed, and impactful, the story itself fell flat. I didn’t find myself connecting to any of the characters except Jamal, who is telling the story from a first-person perspective. But even Jamal drove me absolutely insane. I get it. He’s a journalist. Thank you. I am aware, and I was aware the first ten times. Plus the writing wasn’t well-edited, and missing punctuation, random capitalization, and pretty glaring misspellings made immersion jumpy at best, and impossible at worst.

I think I could have gotten over my immersion issues if it weren’t the lack of believability for the ending. I’m sorry, but what? I won’t spoil it, but I’m just confused. The direction taken with three teenagers was absurd, and I just don’t see in what world that would actually happen. In a normal novel, there is some expectation you can suspend belief, at least for a little while. But this? It just felt over the top and completely outside the realm of reason. The ending could have been so much more powerful, and instead felt like it was intentionally faulty for the possibility of seeing a sequel that isn’t needed.

Overall, it was one of those reads where the reasoning behind writing it will stick with me. There’s pretty important language surrounding POC voices and the police brutality that gets excused by people in power. The story wasn’t the best, but it’s still something I would recommend to people.

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betweentheshelves's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced

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

4.0

Thanks to Sourcebooks Fire and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this to review! This book was on my radar after reading Kosoko Jackson's book, Yesterday Is History, and it hits all of the right notes. If you're looking for a timely YA book that highlights real world issues, this is the book for you!

Kosoko Jackson has a really easy to read writing style that's fast paced and pulls you along in the story. This specifically works well for this particular story, because everything is happening at a rate that adds stress and anxiety to the characters. What also makes this book work well is the fact that (unfortunately) this is something you could see playing out today. Which honestly makes it feel all the more real.

While the writing and story is relevant, some of the dialog and other writing elements could have used a bit of tweaking. Some of the conversations between characters just didn't feel realistic to me, and I wanted a bit more character development in the story. It felt like, at times, there was more telling than showing. But I do think that's something that gets better the more that you write!

All in all, this is a fast-paced, dystopian-esque story that will definitely get you thinking.

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jadekling's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

content warnings about, but an absolutely phenomenal book I devoured.

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kelliejean's review

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dark informative inspiring tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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