Reviews with content warning for Physical abuse - The Shadow King

A beautifully written story of Ethiopia's fight against Mussolini's invasion. It is brutal and heartbreaking, but I don't think the truth of war can be told in any other way.

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booksjessreads's review against another edition

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challenging dark slow-paced

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

4.0

This book took me ages to read but this was such a rewarding novel and honestly stick with it if you are struggling. This book is centred around military history, but demonstrating how war in Ethiopia against the Italians in 1935 was not strictly masculine territory. Mengiste's work demonstrates women fighting for their place to be amongst their fellow men on the battlefield, following the story of Hirut and her master Kidane.

I liked how this book showed you how no character was 100% good or bad and that each person had their own good and bad qualities. It demonstrates that the oppressed can also be the oppressor and provokes mixed feelings for each character throughout the novel.

I really loved the writing style too, beautiful prose. I found the lack of speech marks hard at first, but like with Girl, Woman, Other, you get there when you get into the flow of the book.

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athenaia's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective 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? It's complicated

4.75

The book is very challenging to read but beautifully written. However it is also not a book that is for light reading. The topics that are discussed were sometimes hard to deal with and I would recommend anyone who wants to read it to do it slowly and stop if it is too much for one day. In my opinion the book is a fantastic litterary work even though I needed half a year to finish it.

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unfiltered_fiction's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative 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? It's complicated

2.75

I read The Shadow King for my work book club, and it provoked such an interesting and varied discussion - definitely one I'd recommend for a group read!

I have mixed feelings about this book myself - there were elements of it that were phenomenal, and aspects that felt quite underdeveloped.

I found several of the structural and stylistic elements a little frustrating. A lack of quote marks and use of first person present tense, two of my pet hates in literature, made it difficult for me to properly lose myself in the story. The story is also presented in a highly stylised way, with interludes and choruses, with references in both style and content to Homer's Iliad. I really applaud Mengiste's aim of writing back to the male, Western and white dominated tradition of epic, but I found these framing techniques emotionally distancing and a little forced.

One of the key things I found frustrating was how little agency women maintained throughout the story. In her author's note, Mengiste says that "The story of war had always been a masculine story, but this was not true for Ethiopia and it has never been that way in any form of struggle. Women have been there, we are here now." Whilst she's absolutely right, this book really didn't feel to me like it put women right at the centre of the story.

However, the writing is stunning. It is philosophically rich, immaculately researched, and a distinctly valuable resistance to Western-centred narratives of conflict. It's an especially important text because Mengiste reminds the reader of the very, very recent brutality inflicted on people and nations of colour by European regimes; I have spent years in classrooms learning about the World Wars and their historical, but I did not know a thing about Mussolini's campaigns on Ethiopia.

It's a very important story, but overall, I wasn't a huge fan of how it was told.

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