Reviews with content warning for Addiction - Stone Butch Blues

Reviews tagging 'Addiction'

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

9 reviews

rhiannonhoward's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad 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? It's complicated

4.75

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quinn24's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

3.75

didn’t like this as much as I thought I would but I do still like it quite a bit. I wasn’t a big fan of the writing style and I found that the timeline tended to jump forward months or years without warning. It is very clearly a labour of love however, and it is a very interesting and important read. If you are interested in queer history and like historical fiction you would probably like it. It does have a lot of heavy content but I didn’t find it to be gratuitous, it was real and unfortunately necessary to tell an accurate story, (though of course you should check warnings if needed).

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dandydoodle's review

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emotional inspiring reflective 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

5.0

Reading this book 40 years after it’s initial publication doesn’t take away from it’s ability to reach a hand deep into my chest and squeeze my heart until about ready to burst, only to cradle it afterwards. This copy has been sitting on my shelf for years and I cannot believe it took me so long to pick up, but I feel as though it found me when I needed it most.

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barrybj's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

its 5 AM right now and i just blazed through the entire second half of Stone Butch Blues in one sitting. I....dont know how to describe how I feel. I just feel.

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celestriakle's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

I see why this book is considered a foundational queer text. It covers such a length of time, and it's fascinating to have that glimpse into the past and over the decades. It really does resonate even in 2023; so many of the struggles we had then are recurring again, and it's fascinating to see how the conversations played out both then and now. It did succeed in its main mission, getting me to think about gender and expression and all such things. Even when I wasn't reading, I found myself reconsidering my own gender and considering the experiences and variety we see. Not to mention, the prose is beautiful. I had so many passages highlighted of beautiful description that underscored the mood of the moment.

That said, it's not a perfect book. There are a LOT of side characters, and for me they blended together. All the butches sounded and acted very similar, so did all the femmes. The archetypes make a big splash of strong characterization the first time, but then it loses some power when you see all the characters acting similarly. That said, there are still a couple stand-outs, so it's not all bad.

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