Reviews with content warning for Cursing - Black Leopard, Red Wolf

I really wanted to like this book, but finishing it was an absolute chore. I knew very early on I disliked it but powered through to give it a chance. The audiobook was 24 hours long and truly maybe six of those hours were actually necessary to the plot. So much of this massive novel was unconnected random stories that were gross, repetitive, and a drag. I fell asleep listening to this, didn’t go back to listen to what I’d missed, and at no point was confused because nothing in the entire hour I slept was actually important to the story. I hate when authors think that for their fantasy to be taken seriously they have to make it disgusting, crass, and disturbing to read. This book is not worth all the time it takes.

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bookishchef's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

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

2.5

Almost impossible to rate. The author is trying to tell a story in a new way (new in book form anyway).

However, it was as confusing as could be and I often lost track of who was supposed to be who. Eventually I gave up on remembering any of the characters.

Also: trigger warning for every single bad thing under the sun. There's sexual assault and graphic rape scenes of kids, women and men. There's murder, cannibalism, gore and lord knows what else.

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magehydrate's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

Wow this one took awhile because it’s so…. vile? Captivating? Pretentious? I feel really complicated about this book. It’s shocking to me that 1)it got published 2) it has so much hype. It’s literally on the featured shelf of the local feminist anarchist book store and I wonder if they have any idea what takes place in the book?
Marlon James is clearly a talented writer, and also seemed to have done a lot of research into African (I believe specifically west african? could be wrong) legends and myths, but still this book was at times nearly impassable. Every type of extreme sexual violence is written about in great detail, including pedophelia, beastiality, sexual torture. The list goes on—I’ve actually seen a list going around of all the “triggers” in this book. The main characters are all foul people, even in the depths of their love or flaws, they reek. Tracker, the teller of the tale, may to be blame for that, for he is a man overcome with anger and nothingness and everything is through his eyes. Even when a violent act is not being done, the characters never have kind things to say, and often their dialogue is a threat, typically sexual in nature. Aside from the sheer amount of violence, James tries too hard to make the plot complex, and loses the thread for most of the book. What could have been a cool search party journey turns into something at times totally illegible because he’s trying so hard? The dialogue is almost exclusively nonsensical riddles, which at first is sort of engaging and requires close reading, but eventually one realizes that the riddles are not opening doors to greater meaning, but rather putting off meaning entirely. (Which might actually be on purpose? So much of the book is about stories and lies, the absence and construction of truth and story. What would a character who is without any meaning at all think of meaning?)Somehow, despite all that…I read the whole thing and was drawn into the world which was huge and imaginative. The monsters are interesting, and so are the enchantments and magics, though they’re all cruel and disgusting (but shouldn’t magic be kind of unpleasant??)and I did find myself invested. It is hard to say what kind of development happens for the characters—for instance , Tracker hates women and that is brought to his attention almost 80% of the way thru the book, but the resolution is two vague sentences about finally seeing his mom again and crying at her feet. In fact it makes one wonder if James himself hates women, because he does address how little choice and mobility women have, even in this fictional non western fantasy realm, but there isn’t a single woman in the book who isn’t conniving, selfish and evil… But again, Tracker sort of admits at the beginning of the book that he might be lying, and we are reminded that this entire tale is through his lens. Man. this is a crazy book. There is so much to say about it and I know I will be thinking about it for a long time. Not sure if I will read the others in this series. Might write another review after some time, when I’ve had more time to think about it.

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nrhilmer's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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aehmyers's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious 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? Yes

4.75

I loved this book. Tracker has a quick wit which gets him in trouble. He’s known for being able to follow a scent anywhere in the world. When he is called on for these services and his sharp tongue discovered, he often gets told “It is said you have a nose. Nobody told me you have a mouth.” There were quite a few points I was cackling at these characters shenanigans. It is also dark, graphic, and moving. The ending is sad but feels authentic to the story. The magic is fantastical, you have to just sit with it and accept it. And I loved the way in which the stories at the beginning become so relevant to character development later. I fell in love with a lot of these characters. Would recommend with content warnings for graphic fights, deaths, slavery, abuse.

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thenymphsvoice's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious 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

I saw someone else said this is like a fever or drug induced dream and… fuck the gods they ain’t wrong.

However that’s not a bad thing. BLRW is a wild ride, I found the characters compelling, funny, sad, rage inducing.

This story was not afraid to deal with harsh realities even if this is a fantasy.

Trackers life is disjointed and many times dehumanizing. They struggle to understand themselves and their world, as it often changes with the snap of a finger around them.

They adapt they hurt, they grow or don’t in the perfectly imperfect way people do.

What I would say to anyone going into reading this is, prepare yourself to not always understand what is happening. That is a reflection of the characters confusion of events and the way their life has been broken by the traumas they have and do endure. (At least that’s how it read to me.)

The mystery and journey is second to me to the journey that Tracker is on in their own head. Invest in Trackers experience.

Also… if you can think of it Trigger/Content Warning. It’s in this book. Be prepared.

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cyngharris's review

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adventurous challenging dark sad tense slow-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

3.75

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vedpears's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.25

What a challenging read - not because of the writing style, but because of the content.
Abundant run on sentences took some getting used to, but I managed to navigate that just fine.
I enjoyed how the story was written in such a way that it was like viewing a large photo by zooming in, then zooming out a bit, zooming in somewhere nearby, zooming out again until the whole picture is revealed.
What I did not enjoy was the overwhelming number of elements that would warrant trigger warnings: sex, rape, child abuse, pedophilia, slavery, bodily harm, mutilation, murder, combinations of all of those at once with a gratuitous serving of explicit language.
The overarching story is intriguing. The characters and concepts borrowed from African history and mythology were woven in very well. If this were written to be less corrosive on the psyche, I would have rated it higher.

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