Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead

18 reviews

hyperpension's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Toxic relationship, Classism, Colonisation, Transphobia, Sexual content, Homophobia, Racism, Violence, and Alcoholism

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Death, Misogyny, and Abandonment

jaysaysnope's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.25

Oh, Jonny. I’ve heard other Black people in the diaspora talking about how when they see videos of Māori people doing the haka, they get immediately emotional. Something about seeing an Indigenous people engaging in an ancient practice from their culture, something something slavery and loss of connection to our own cultures. That’s kind of how Jonny makes me feel. The spectre of white supremacy has carved the queerness out of so many of our histories. Reading this when West African countries are codifying homophobia into law, when rates of transphobic violence against teenagers are rising, when Nex Benedict’s death is ruled a suicide… this book made me cry and it made me yearn and it made me laugh. I want ten more books about this NDN princess.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content and Violence

Moderate: Racism, Death of parent, Death, Child abuse, Homophobia, and Transphobia

Minor: Pedophilia and Suicidal thoughts

djbobthegirl's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Grief, Transphobia, Alcoholism, Blood, Classism, Colonisation, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Emotional abuse, Self harm, Biphobia, Cursing, Drug use, Homophobia, Sexual content, Domestic abuse, Fatphobia, Addiction, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Violence, Body shaming, Death of parent, Dysphoria, Outing, Physical abuse, and Bullying

Minor: Sexual assault, Racial slurs, Cancer, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Pedophilia, Racism, Vomit, Excrement, and Infidelity

deinonychus's review against another edition

emotional reflective slow-paced

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

4.5

This is an excellent book, reflecting on the love and healing that is found between moments of intense pain. About being honest to one's self and the consequences that brings, the ways that community is both essential and the source of our greatest hurts. Joshua Whitehead also pulls no punches with the issues facing First Nations communities in Canada (and the US), from the lasting trauma of the residential school system to MMIW to the destructive effects of foster care that persist to this day. Definitely plan on adding this to my physical library.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Domestic abuse, and Violence

readingwithkaitlyn's review against another edition

dark emotional 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? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia, Pedophilia, Racism, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Alcoholism, Terminal illness, Body shaming, Death, Infidelity, Sexual harassment, Bullying, Sexual assault, Child abuse, Transphobia, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Homophobia, and Chronic illness

Minor: Slavery and Fire/Fire injury

Absent parent, prostitution, f slur, residential schools, MMIWG2S, injured animal, broken bones, mention of lynching, e slur, child birth death, overdose,

nkmustdie's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative sad medium-paced

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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Death, Cultural appropriation, Transphobia, Vomit, Grief, Child abuse, Body shaming, Blood, Animal death, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Homophobia, Racial slurs, Pregnancy, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Violence, Sexual content, Religious bigotry, Adult/minor relationship, Sexism, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Infidelity, Dysphoria, Cursing, Classism, Racism, Bullying, Terminal illness, Sexual violence, Colonisation, and Chronic illness

kateellis00's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny reflective fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Grief, Homophobia, Violence, and Racism

criticalgayze's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny fast-paced

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

5.0

At the risk of being explicit, Queer millennial writers are the shit. (Side Note: If that little bit of cursing was too much for you, do not pick up this book - see my trigger warnings.) While I am late to the Whitehead party, he has joined the ranks of Emezi, Taylor, and Purnell in writers who are revolutionizing form, storytelling, and identity in a way that is going to have a major impact on literature from here on, and it is no wonder when reading works like this that power structures are so terrified of Queers.

From the opening scene-setting of sneaking Queer as Folk in the bedroom as a child, Whitehead creates a sense of the Queer kid who is exposed early to what it means to understand yourself as a sexual being. In that way, I felt myself immediately seen on the pages. While being a mere (but learning) spectator in his specific experience as a Queer person of Indigenous heritage, I also felt incredibly in tune with his experience of impoverished matriarchal and tight-knit extended family dynamics.

Having read Dear Senthuran and Jonny Appleseed, two Queer books steeped in culturally specific spirituality, Baldwin's refrain strikes me all the more that we white people have truly done terrible harm, not just to the marginalized peoples that were subjugated and expelled and murdered, but to ourselves through colonialism. This lack of access to a deeper spiritual identity that we white people suffer from leads us to a toxic sense of personal restlessness that makes us a danger to ourselves.

This was just such an extremely powerful book that I am thankful the Canadian book gatekeepers had the good sense to prioritize.

Quotes:
And I always got a tickle out of how you could anthropomorphize yourself within the gay animal kingdom: "bear," otter," "wolf," "fox," "cubs." If only these gays knew how powerful Mistahimaskwa could really be. (18)
I thought for a second, then accepted it: I added "canine" to the list of entities I could morph into and started charging an extra few bucks per session. (25)
Like the leech, I too felt like a hermaphrodite: part boy, part girl, and always needed by hunters and fishermen. And I always left a red mark on their bodies somewhere, as if to say: I was here./
Plus, leeches are medicine, didn't you know? (81)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Drug use, Grief, Racism, Alcohol, Bullying, Child abuse, Cursing, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual content, and Violence

Moderate: Colonisation

Minor: Pregnancy

balth_the_chaotic_good's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad 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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Racism, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Colonisation, Grief, Hate crime, Cultural appropriation, and Homophobia

Moderate: Death of parent, Blood, Fatphobia, Vomit, Infidelity, Transphobia, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Bullying, Classism, Cursing, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Racial slurs, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence

paigieodo's review against another edition

emotional reflective fast-paced

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

5.0

the most beautiful prose i've ever read in my entire life. it's a 200 page long poem about loving even the things that should be impossible to love.

i hate grim books, books that are fixated on the ugliness of life. i just hate them, because that's never been how i see things. i don't think humans are selfish, that bodies are grotesque, that everyone is just waiting around for a chance to take advantage of you. i love my coke addict mother and and i love my drunk of a father and i love the disgusting mess my mom would feed me every dinner growing up with the scraps from the back of the cupboard because we were dirt poor. i love the people who have abused me, who have hurt me on purpose. i don't think there's anything ugly about being human. only things that hurt, things that shred us apart, things that make us feel too much in all the wrong ways. and all of it is beautiful.

joshua whitehead, through the character of jonny, encapsulates this better than any other author. rot and mess and mud and blood and cum and spit are beautiful because they're attached to the people we love, even the ones we love without really having a good reason to. whitehead has written the most wondrously human characters in this novel. i'm in love with them. i'll never forget them. god. i have a lot of feelings about this book and also nothing meaningful to say at all that will do it justice. i love it. i love every part of it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse and Physical abuse

Moderate: Violence

Minor: Chronic illness, Fatphobia, Rape, Drug abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Classism, Death, Excrement, Alcohol, Animal death, Body shaming, Grief, Homophobia, Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Colonisation, Death of parent, and Sexual violence