Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

167 reviews

celesteleila's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

Kindred was the right name for this book. This story really dived into to the complicated ties and dynamics that surround Black people and the ancestral ties we carry to slavery. Dana’s story was illuminating because it was a more accurate portrayal of the antebellum South with all of its horrors and sadness. I found Dana to be a cold character who measures situation with a kind of dogged determination to carve her place on the plantation. Her challenge with meeting her ancestors was utterly complex and I think the physical manifestation of the scars on her body and Kevin’s gave her a true connection to the circumstances of the time. I especially love Butler’s writing - her story is captivating, horrifying and insightful all at once. This book reminded me that the ties between past and present are stronger than we think and throughout the book, Dana noted some of the origins of culture that continued into her day. All in all this book was incredible although hard to digest at points. But upon reflection, I think that’s the point to show reality, truth and authenticity of a time that some try so hard to actively erase. Read it and learn. Read it and be challenged. Read it to learn and to hear the voices lost to time that were so powerful and are connected in many ways to the world we live in today. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Rape, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Murder, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Self harm, Sexual assault, Slavery, Death of parent, and Suicide

trashely's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Racism, Sexual violence, Physical abuse, Slavery, Suicide, Rape, Domestic abuse, Gore, Vomit, Death of parent, Racial slurs, Violence, Torture, Hate crime, Death, Self harm, Murder, and Trafficking

mromie's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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

5.0

Octavia Butler, mother of Science Fiction, blends Black feminist pedagogy seamlessly into this fictional tale of a black female writer Dana from 1976 who is mysteriously transported to 1824 antebellum Maryland at times when her white ancestor and enslaver Rufus is in life-or-death situations. 

We do not live in a time so far removed from systems and acts of oppression, violence, sexual torture, and racism as many would prefer to believe. With the blurring of time through time travel, Butler reminds us that the time from enslavement period was only few generations before us and could have been us too. To this day, enslavement exists in parts of the world, in places of war, and in renamed forms in America. 

Robert Crossley’s Reader’s Guide had insightful comments, including:
- Butler: Science fiction has long treated people who might or might not exist — ETs. Unfortunately, however, many of the same science-fiction writers who started us thinking about the possibility of extraterrestrial life did nothing to make us think about here-at-home human variation” 
- Butler “has redrawn science fiction’s cultural boundaries…deployed the genre’s conventions to tell stories with a political and sociological edge to them, stories that speak to issues, feelings, and historical truths arising out of African-American experience. In centering her fiction on women who lack power and suffer abuse but are committed to claiming power over their own lives and to exercising that power harshly when necessary, Butler has not merely used science fiction as a “feminist didactic,” in Beverly Friend’s terminology, but she has generated her fiction out of a black feminist aesthetic.” 

- time travel as a metaphor and medium; “traveling to the past is a dramatic means to make the past live, to get the reader to live imaginatively, in the recreated past, to grasp it as a felt reality rather than merely a learned abstraction” 

- Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a metaphor for the exclusion of women from acts of creation

- subtle parallels between Rufus Weylin and Kevin Franklin, system of white supremacist culture

- first hand narratives of enslavement vs Hollywood retellings and novels that sanitize or glamorize it

- Kindred as the title, literary kinship with the memoirs of formerly enslaved peoples, “chained to her ancestral past by the genealogical link that requires her to keep the oppressive slave master alive until her own family is initiated”

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Racial slurs, Self harm, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Hate crime, Ableism, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Emotional abuse, Gore, Violence, Racism, Rape, Classism, Colonisation, and Murder

hiagovinicius's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective sad 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Racism, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Bullying, Torture, Grief, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Self harm, Toxic friendship, Gaslighting, Toxic relationship, War, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Chronic illness, Classism, Death, Violence, Murder, and Confinement

lillithofthepants's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Pregnancy, Misogyny, Domestic abuse, Torture, Suicide attempt, Sexual assault, Sexism, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Colonisation, Child death, Racism, Self harm, Racial slurs, Sexual violence, Rape, Physical abuse, Murder, Miscarriage, Death, and Violence

alicelalicon's review against another edition

challenging tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Racial slurs, Self harm, Slavery, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, Torture, Hate crime, Alcohol, Classism, Sexism, Blood, Sexual violence, Child death, Domestic abuse, and Racism

thecatspajamas7's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Racism, Physical abuse, Slavery, and Torture

Moderate: Suicide attempt, Death, Emotional abuse, Child death, Murder, Violence, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Violence

yourbookishbff's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-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

4.5

Going into this, I knew to expect time travel between present-day (at publication - late 1970s) and the antebellum South, but I did not expect that Kindred would ultimately be more character study than time travel/sci fi - and now I understand why it is such a memorable and timeless read for the genre. For a book under 300 pages that leans heavily on dialogue, this drives a nuanced, complicated, and deeply disturbing portrayal of the relationship between a Black woman living in the 1970s and her white (slave-holding) ancestor living in the early 19th century. The world-building is secondary here - we don't ever understand how this is happening, only why, as Dana is repeatedly pulled back in time to save Rufus's life and ensure the continuation of her family line. The abruptness of the story's start is mirrored again in its conclusion, and we are left reeling from the slow-building horror of a white boy who grows into a white man at a time when he is afforded every privilege of power and security. 

Butler consistently sows doubt in the reader: Is Dana's husband, Kevin, good enough to her, will he protect her, will he prioritize himself? Is Dana growing attached to Rufus, does she feel sorry for him, does she forgive him for his cruelty because she sees how he was raised? Do we become acclimated as Dana and Kevin do, do the horrors become loss horrible through exposure, do we become numb to it? What are we willing to sacrifice to save ourselves, a person we love, or a family member? Butler resists answering any of these questions, instead giving characters room to orbit around each other as they make their own decisions and shape their own histories. 

This is a challenging and graphic read, but a fast-paced one that evidences Butler's place in the sci-fi/fantasy canon. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Physical abuse, Violence, Misogyny, Racism, Racial slurs, Pregnancy, Rape, Slavery, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide attempt, Trafficking, Suicide, Sexual violence, Self harm, and Murder

Moderate: Alcohol, Ableism, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma, Alcoholism, Child abuse, and Fatphobia

Slurs for disabled people are used (this was written and published in the 1970s and today's readers should be aware that these instances will go unchallenged on page). Fatphobia also goes unchallenged on page in the present-day (1970s) storyline.

xwritingstoriesx's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective tense

• 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Slavery, Self harm, Suicide, Racial slurs, Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Racism, Murder, Rape, and Torture

skatie8's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.5

A thought provoking look into antebellum America

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery

Moderate: Slavery, Sexual violence, Racial slurs, Suicide, Physical abuse, and Racism

Minor: Rape and Murder