Reviews tagging 'Colonisation'

Stolen Tongues by Felix Blackwell

8 reviews

moebrownie's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-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

1.5

The prologue was peak horror writing, but unfortunately the book goes downhill from there. The challenges the characters face become repetitive and tiring. I personally found the ending wholly unsatisfying. I also don’t understand how you follow up your book with an entire passage about wanting to be sensitive about writing indigenous characters and experiences right after

killing off the main two indigenous characters in the book??

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Gore, Murder, and Child death

Moderate: Mental illness

Minor: Colonisation

tocattaandfugue's review against another edition

hopeful mysterious tense medium-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? It's complicated

3.5

This book definitely reads like it was written for reddit. That being said, its a fun and captivating story.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Miscarriage, Colonisation, and Racism

of course, with horror there are many things to be cautious of but I want to note three major themes and topics in the story. Miscarriage

The secondary protagonist of this book experiences dissociative fugue surrounding the stillborn death of her baby brother. It is something she remembers and processes in the ending parts of the books.

Racism and Colonization

the book contains three notable indigenous characters from fictional native american tribes. they are all supporting protagonists and i found them all interesting and positive characters. HOWEVER, the book does discuss the whitewashing of indigenous cultures, stereotypes, and differences in opinion and beliefs amongst natives. Two of the native characters die "offscreen". The ending of the book includes a brief discussion on Native Americans in fiction. I personally think it's informative and useful!! However, I'm non-native and my opinion on the matter could be un-intentionally ignorant. If this is a possible triggering topic for you, I recommend reading Felix's discussion on natives in fiction before reading the book!!

zapzap9000's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative mysterious 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? No

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Grief, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Murder, Child death, Colonisation, Miscarriage, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Pregnancy, Torture, Physical abuse, Stalking, and Vomit

alexisgarcia's review against another edition

tense medium-paced

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

if i would’ve known the author wasn’t an indigenous individual, i wouldn’t have read this and recommend that you don’t read this. in terms of the plot, the beginning and middle are pretty good, but the ending is awful. the author also uses indigenous characters, history, folklore, etc. to further the story/plot for the white characters and then proceeds to kill off the indigenous characters??? only for the white characters who caused all of the problems for the now dead indigenous characters to walk away safe and happy? at the end of the book the author goes to speak on the exploitation of indigenous voices and stories but does that exact thing in the book he just wrote??? it almost feels like a joke.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Racism, Child death, Cursing, Murder, Colonisation, Cultural appropriation, Death, Violence, and Animal death

judassilver's review against another edition

dark informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

2.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Vomit, and Violence

Moderate: Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Cultural appropriation, Gore, and Racism

Minor: Cancer, Child death, and Colonisation

kkalicky94's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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? It's complicated

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Child death, Colonisation, Death, Grief, Miscarriage, Vomit, and Violence

slimepuppy's review

dark mysterious sad tense slow-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

Great atmospheric horror that gripped me from start to finish. The cast of characters is strong, ranging in varied personalities and backgrounds, that in turn shape them into believable people.

The setting of the mountain is spooky and lonely, but the novel surprisingly doesn't lose steam as it changes to California - the hopelessness of the situation the main characters are in is heavy enough to isolate them, even in the suburbs.

The many mysteries in the story had me turning all the clues around in my head, trying to decipher everything in a haste that I hadn't felt in a while - which made it all so much more disappointing when so many things that had kept me up were answered with a shrug and a "I guess we'll never know".

[MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD]

Speaking of disappointment, the sole reason that the rating is not a solid 4.0 is the main secret of the story. The idea that so many nice, well meaning people lost their lives because of Faye's mom is just... bewildering - and the book doesn't even come to terms with it, too?! In fact, the whole family was pretty scummy about the secret. I get not wanting to reveal something so grim and tragic after so many years of keeping it a secret, but Faye's life was in danger! They all experienced the creature some way or another, and yet they all neglected to tell the truth until the girl and her fiancée were just about done with the whole living thing. It also got somewhat repetitive, the whole "you tell her!" "no, you tell her!" HELLO?? YOUR DAUGHTER MIGHT DIE OVER THIS???? 2/3 OF THE PEOPLE OF COLOR IN THE BOOK DIED BECAUSE YOU COULDN'T OPEN UP 

 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Death, Gore, Violence, and Vomit

Moderate: Colonisation and Miscarriage

Minor: Child death and Suicidal thoughts

madarauchiha's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

0.25

 ❤️ 🧡 💛 💚 💙 💜  my about / byf / CW info carrd: uchiha-madara 💜 💙 💚 💛 🧡 ❤️

 

The pacing is horrible. The author doesn't know when the edit shit out, and where to move the plot forward. Boring. Repetitive. Fake out climax way too many times. Misogynist flat female character. Incredibly racist towards indigenous characters. Classist about 'lower class' blue collar workers. The mystery of the monster concluded poorly. Conclusion of the most afflicted / possessed / haunted character's arc was embarrassing and frustratingly flippant. The prose is juvenile and middle grade levels. The tension, horror, creepiness was nonexistent. This should have stayed on reddit, bro. 

▪ I’ll cut you a discount on today’s rate, since I can’t get this stuff out. If you want I can drop by on the weekend and fix this wall up for ya, nice and proper. Hunnerd bucks.”

 

This is how blue collar characters are depicted btw. They talk low class and schtupid??? Really? 

▪ “The body was mutilated,” Nathan stammered. “Someone took his skin and hair…took his teeth.” He broke down and cried. I did too.

 

This is one of the three named indigenous character. He's the

Magic Shaman, and he gets brutally murdered off screen.

 

▪ To my relief, it was Nathan. I immediately babbled a salutation and a few questions, which he ignored. His voice came through grave and low, and he said, “Felix, let me speak to the one who followed you home.” I looked to Faye, who sat on the floor next to me in a pair of yoga pants, pulling books out of a box. “Uhh…It’s for you, I think.” Faye put the phone to her ear and said “Hello?” and then listened quietly for about a minute. I could hear Nathan speaking, but could not make out anything he said. Suddenly, a volcano of black puke exploded from Faye’s mouth. It sprayed across the carpet in a cone before her, and sent me nearly jumping out of my skin. She doubled over onto the floor like a ragdoll, coughing and sputtering. I leaped to my feet, panicking and asking if she was alright. I picked up the phone and screamed at Nathan, demanding to know what he had said to her. 

“I know how to purge a drain clog,” he said, chuckling.  

After spending like 30 +chapters and a whole lot of time with the mc trying to figure out what the ghost monster is and how to defeat it, this is what stops the ghost monster. What a cheap culmination of nearly 2 hours and 30 chapters. 

▪ Walking into my home and seeing Faye light up nearly stopped my heart. An ineffable mixture of joy and sorrow overwhelmed me, and we wrapped each other up in a long hug – after which I endured a volley of angry slaps and kisses. I understood. She was furious that I’d spent so much time trying to take control of the situation, that I had treated her like a child and disregarded her feelings in my crusade to rescue her.

 

So after reading her like a useless mentally ill moron this all the character development being possessed or whatever Like listen, when she was

possessed / stalked by the ghost monster, she was very adamant and annoyed at the MC for trying to boss her around, get her medical attention, investigate the ghost monster, etc.

And now this happens, after all that. It feels like a regression in her character. 

▪ “Just a bit of sage. I change it out every so often. Might not ward off the devil, but it’ll protect you from the smell of your bad cooking.” “You really crack yourself up, eh?” I shot back. Tíwé’s ill-concealed snickers broke to open laughter.

 

It was illegal for native americans to use sage in their religious practice until 1978. Do you really think an actual indigenous person would be this flippant about. Sigh. Why am i even typing this out. The author doesnt give a fuck. 

▪ “Colorado has been home to many groups,” he began. “The Ute, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Pueblo, and Anasazi people have all called it home at one point or another. There are many more who came and left. War and famine and weather always shifted people around, but the big movements came when the Gold Rush spread here. Thousands and thousands of Natives were displaced – or killed. Mining operations forced people out of their ancestral homelands.

 

I don't think indigenous people of North America would describe their own genocide and colonization so vaguely but ok. What do I know? Only that I'd call what the Spanish did to us in the Philippines as genocidal atrocities and rape and colonization. 

▪ “My people gave him the name At’an-A’anotogkua,” he said quietly. “The term refers to water, and how it is formless until it fills a vessel. Angela wasn’t wrong when she called him the ‘hollow one,’ because there is no direct translation, really. Maybe it is more accurate to call him ‘the Impostor,’ because this being fills himself with the life force of his prey.”

 

They made a brief big deal about not naming the monsters and then just.... Say the name. ok. What's consistency? Who the fuck knows! 

▪ “My father’s crazy, by the way,” Nathan added. “Te’anoi nakhan,” Tíwé said, tapping his head. “Too much snowboarding and Red Bull. Rots his brains.” This time, we all laughed.

 

Ah so there is the source of the author's research. That racist 'Crazy Talk the indian man' joke from the simpsons. 

▪ “She bore you with her academic spiels?” he laughed. “Some things you cannot learn from books!” I’m actually an academic myself,” I admitted. Tíwé’s expression changed. “My apologies,” he said. “They come out here for their research trips all the time, organized by the universities. We can tell they mean well, but they sometimes treat us like…like…” “Lab rats,” Nathan interjected, carrying mugs of tea into the room. He sat down next to his father and studied me. “I was thinking of Jane Goodall, living among the chimps!” Tíwé said, cracking up. “Angela mentioned that, uh, Natives are sometimes hesitant to share information with outsiders,” I said, trying to remember her exact words. “It’s true,” Tíwé replied. “At least for my people. We aren’t so cavalier in sharing our history. It’s a very personal thing. You can’t just tell the stories like a history teacher in a classroom. The setting matters. The audience matters. How you tell the story, and where you tell it – why you tell it – it all matters! The wisdom of our fathers was spoken for generations, not written down and revised and published. Not sold and archived. The Europeans thought we were backward for this! And the anthropologists who visit us, they call this ‘oral tradition.’ I guess it’s fitting.”

 

Deep tired sigh, gritted teeth. If you enjoyed this book I both hate you and am embarassed for you. What's in your brain cavity? Dust bunnies? Rotting celery? 

▪ Otherworldly terror fueled me, and the image of psychotic cannibals jabbering with their tongues hanging out of their mouths swirled in my mind. I flew inside and slammed the door shut, holding back tears. There in the stillness, I listened to the screams of the wind and the hellish beings that chattered over it. The light vanished. Darkness conquered the landscape and imprisoned me in the cabin.

 

This is specifically about the Native monster man creature that's haunting these white people btw. And this is how the author through the mc is describing indigenous people. 

▪ I’d seen the home videos. Little Faye was adorable and curious. A kid like that would certainly hold a conversation with a stranger, maybe even one from another dimension, if he interested her enough. Whoever it was that called out to her from those woods, he was delighted that she spoke back. Perhaps he became fascinated with her, or something he thought she knew, and had been digging through her mind for years trying to unearth it. Faye’s strong personality might have prevented him from fooling her while she was awake, but while asleep, she is as gentle as a lamb, and naïve. Almost like a child.

 

One of the many irritating ways the one main woman character is depicted. She's useless, guileless, used to bring up racy sex stuff, she has zero personality outside of the male mc character. If there wasnt sparse descriptions of curly hair and WASPness, I'd call her a sexy lamp. 

▪ I tried not to scoff at the exchange. It was still light enough outside that the analytical part of my brain hadn’t surrendered yet. “Okay, okay,” I interjected, “let’s just say this thing is real. What do we do now? How do we get rid of it?”

 

So the mc has gone through almost a month of hauntings, explicit hauntings involving his fiance, and hes still playing dumb. especially when he called in the magical native character to resolve the haunting. The author knows a lot of tropes and not a damn clue how to execute any of them, much less in an interesting manner. 

▪ Na’hepa,” she said. “It can mean friend, or sister, depending on how you use it.”

 

What language is this. How did the author include this but not the name of the Nation much less reservation that the the indigenous characters are from? 

▪ “It’s been years since I’ve practiced,” she replied. “After my mom passed, I came out to California. Some members of my family are still upset with my decision, so I never had anyone to speak it with.”

 

So the indigenous woman just what? abandoned her entire culture? That's not unheard if and of course irl people can do whatever they want. but the author had proven themselves to be racist and this is a fictional character who cannot make her own decisions. 

▪ “When we were kids, we lived next to each other on the reservation. His grandfather was a tribal elder, and he gave lessons on our people’s language to me and my mother. There’s a big effort to preserve Native languages now, you know.”

 

WHAT RESERVATION. WHERE? SAY THE NAME, THE STATE IT IS IN. You know you can just search for native reservations on the internet, right? this isn't hidden knowledge. 

▪ Angela arrived at our home by late afternoon, and was just as warm and friendly as Tíwé. Her hair was straight and black with a sprinkling of gray. It framed a lean face with two green eyes, just like Faye’s. Although my fiancée can be reserved around new people, she instantly took a liking to our guest, and within minutes they were complimenting each other’s hair.  

The way the author writes women characters is so... weird and sexist. What are do girls like??? Say compliments to each ??? ??? profit! 

The other thing that's grating is how shallow it is. Oh, it touches on some things but there's never concrete detail. Yes there's a medical evaluation scene but it's haphazardly thrown in and thrown away. for how long this book is, its too scared to exist in places the author isnt familiar in. I think this book could have done better with some research and showing, not telling. 

I think what is grating about this is that there is a decent plot here. It does greatly need refining and removing of the weird racist parts. The author is self aware enough to acknowledge magical native americans is a shitty trope. But doesn't go far enough, and it feels like the author is purposefully or unintentionally skirting the base issue of that trope. I think this is partly in fault of it's origin. That this is a creepypasta from read it, and it shows. 

In the author notes, Blackwell makes a big deal wringing his hands over how to portray Native characters and all the tropes and stereotypes associated with them, and how he wanted to do right by them. But at the end we still have all the white(?) characters alive and the two main indigenous characters brutally murdered by the indigenous monster ghost. So like, what was all that hand wringing for? Did you learn anything from the indigenous professor you name dropped like a shield against criticism? It sure as fuck doesn't look like it. 

Content warnings. 

minor ableism towards people who use drugs, gore, suicide, medical content, 

medium child death, colonization, death, drug use, genocide, gore, stillbirths, suicide ideation, vomit 

major anti indigenous racism and racial slurs, body horror, magical native stereotypes, medical content, police, psychosis, stalking?, violence 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Racial slurs, Body horror, Medical content, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Violence, and Stalking

Moderate: Child death, Colonisation, Death, Drug use, Genocide, Gore, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

Minor: Ableism, Gore, Suicide, and Medical content