Reviews

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James

iikeli's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

3.0

distraughtplant's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark funny medium-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? Yes

4.75

In interviews about his inspirations for this book,  Marlon expresses his passion for engagement with fantasy worlds being embraced in adulthood just as much as in childhood. I found this vision extremely well realized - this book was a dark whirlpool that sucked me in and pulled me down with it into a a world more vivid and actualized than I've read, perhaps ever. The storytelling format and unreliable narrator really helped pull me in campfire style and lend full ear and mind to the color and character of this book. 

 I absolutely believe family friendly, light, happy, digestible queer representation is necessary and good - I loved Mooncakes just as much as the next trixic, okay? But... as an adult queer living in the real world who has always preferred to engage face to face with the shadowed and darker parts of our world (emotionally, politically, physically in a way) I've housed a deep, unsatiated hunger for raw, gritty stories of queer lives for adults. Not stories about BEING queer, but stories about living, loving, and fighting for survival from a queer perspective. 

Black Leopard, Red Wolf was exactly what I'd been looking for. Intense, unflinching, ripping, biting, tearing, snarling, fucking: Marlon James has created an ethereal and vivid world that reflects real world power structures and violence in a way that is not easy to swallow, but difficult to put down. Needless to say, I cannot wait to buy the second book and am very much excited to see the story retold from another perspective, and in the meantime I will be left with milking BLRW for all Ive got until I find another story that can meet my desires ao completely.

geekwayne's review against another edition

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4.0

'Black Leopard, Red Wolf' by Marlon James was the July pick for my online book club.

Tracker is hired to find a missing boy. He has a way of smelling that gets him his name. And the eye of a wolf, but that's another story. He is accompanied by an eclectic group of people, including a shapeshifting leopard, a melancholy giant, and a variety of witches and misfits.

This is a challenge of a book to read, and the subject matter is not for the faint of heart. To get through it, you need to find the rhythm of the prose, which seems to elude cracking. This is just like the protagonist, who is on a quest that he doesn't seem to want, with a group of people he seems intent on alienating or leading to their death.

I felt lost some of the time, I felt like giving up more than once, but I finished it, and somewhere along the way, I realized I'd read a really decent novel. It's not for everyone, but I'm glad I read it.

randomshai's review against another edition

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2.0

For the first time in my adult life…DNF on page 364.

nachbora's review against another edition

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I tried so hard to get into this book and finish it but I finally had to give up. It’s like falling down that rabbit hole Alice from Alice in wonderland falls into. The story is so difficult to follow and things seem to be happening at random. Maybe it all would’ve made sense if I had finished it, but it was just too painful.

ddillon154's review against another edition

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4.0

I'm not bothered by long books, but this book was LONG and it wasn't necessary in my view. The world is rich and layered and deeply satisfying but the world building and story telling often delay the plot, sometimes massively. The big reveal, for example, came maybe 200 pages in but was pretty clear to me much, much earlier.

Also, the protagonist's unabashed hatred of women (they're all "witches" in his eyes) makes sense but really feels like it should have been unpacked SEVERAL hundred pages earlier. Putting it so late in the book feels like a weak excuse for writing dozens of interactions where he gets to "clever" by being a jerk to women.

fravenwood's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

What is this man's obsession with
rape and pedophilia
???

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

kolymaarasto's review against another edition

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

2.5

anacatnascimento's review against another edition

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1.0

600+ páginas depois e nem sei o que dizer. Com exceção de Catcher in the Rye, diferente em todos os sentidos desta primeira tentativa de Marlon James no magic realism, nunca um livro me tinha tirado tanto do sério do princípio ao fim.

First things first: as menções bastante gráficas a violação, canibalismo, bestialidade e violência eram escusadas. Percebo que algumas sejam necessárias para ilustrar e criticar os mitos, lendas, deuses, culturas e sociedades africanas, mas ler sobre
Spoileruma hiena mágica a violar um humano
não acrescentou nada à história, não me chocou pela positiva e não me fez querer ler mais, muito pelo contrário: voltei a cara em nojo e disse a mim mesma que se surgisse mais alguma referência do género, pararia de ler. Acho que era perfeitamente possível contar uma história bizarra, cruel e chocante (e um bom exemplo são livros sobre histórias reais do Holocausto, Elie Wiesel sendo um dos autores que me deixou completamente em choque e de coração partido), prestando ainda a devida homenagem a África, sem precisar de passar por esta escrita vulgar e obscena, que até os leitores menos púdicos iam achar demais.

Second: neste primeiro volume, conhecemos a história através de Tracker, que a está a contar a um Inquisitor - quem é este Inquisitor, o porquê do interrogatório ou a sua relevância são questões que ficam por responder. A certo ponto, Tracker diz algo que, mais tarde, percebi que resume este looongooo livro na perfeição:
Spoiler“The child is dead. There is nothing left to know.”
. E não há. A não ser que queiram descobrir um dos livros mais pretensiosos de sempre, em que o autor usa arabescos literários para dizer coisas simples, ou tenta fazer suspense em dada ocasião para o leitor trabalhar para obter a resposta e, no final de contas, não há substância - nem resposta.

Até chegarmos a um ponto do livro em que a história avança para algo concreto, já passámos por 400 páginas cheias de sexo, uma lista infindável de deuses e monstros, histórias dentro de histórias, frases em línguas africanas sem qualquer tradução e francamente, uma mão cheia de nada e outra de coisa nenhuma. Só nas últimas 200 páginas a ação ganha uma velocidade estonteante e, de repente, levamos com a informação toda - muita ali colocada a martelo - e percebemos (mas será mesmo que percebemos, ou melhor, que aquilo que nos foi contado faz sentido?) qual é o papel de cada personagem na trama toda - e qual é, afinal de contas, a trama em si.

Não sei se vou conseguir recuperar as semanas que eu passei a tentar sobreviver - e sim, esta é a palavra certa - a este livro sem mazelas permanentes.

kicsim_cris's review against another edition

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The reason i stopped reading this book is because the language was very vulgar, the way the writer described the character's actions, or the way he saw women as disgusting objects to be fucked with made me see no point in liking this ...