Reviews tagging 'Mass/school shootings'

Bitter by Akwaeke Emezi

6 reviews

hailstorm3812's review

dark emotional hopeful inspiring 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? Yes

4.0

After Pet blew me away, I was hoping for more from Bitter. It wasn't bad by any means but they are very different stories. While Pet explores an individual story of failure in an overall good society, this explores how to find your place in a broken society working to get better. I think the use of angels works better in the first, but fill an interesting role here. I do love Bitter herself and seeing how the other characters were as children. I also liked exploring the role of art in revolution and how different people can provide different good works. I liked Miss Virtue but didn't think this aspect was as strong as it could have been. I kind of just want to read Pet again.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality, Panic attacks/disorders, and Violence

Moderate: Murder, Grief, Death, Mass/school shootings, Racism, Gun violence, Homophobia, and Injury/Injury detail

notapenguin's review against another edition

challenging dark 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, War, Police brutality, Panic attacks/disorders, Murder, and Mass/school shootings

Moderate: Gun violence

lena_krysiak's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Mass/school shootings, Self harm, Death of parent, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, and Murder

cookiecat73's review against another edition

dark emotional 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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Mass/school shootings, Panic attacks/disorders, Police brutality, Self harm, War, Xenophobia, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, and Violence

Moderate: Ableism, Classism, and Mental illness

Minor: Drug use and Rape

overbooked207's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective 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? Yes

5.0

📖 Bitter by Akwaeke Emezi Book Review 📖

1st book of July 2022 and 15th book of the year:

This was such a powerful, fantastic, and relevant book and prequel to one of my all-time favorites, Pet. You don’t have to read Pet in order to understand this book, but I highly recommend doing so anyway because it's also such an amazing and important book. I loved that we got to go back in time to see the events talked about in Pet in this book and follow Bitter’s story this time, and it felt more mature and heavier than Pet. The writing and world-building are always phenomenal in Akwaeke Emezi’s books, and this time was no different. The themes/topics that the book brings up including revolution, healing, generational trauma, mental health, found family/coming together as a community to help each other, using art as activism, the cycle of violence, and more are all super important to talk about nowadays and always, the making it a book that I think absolutely everybody should pick up. The audiobook was also done beautifully, and it felt more mature and heavier than Pet, which was already dealing with very heavy subject matter. I highly recommend reading this and everything by Akwaeke Emezi, and I am absolutely in love with all of their book covers! TW for blood, death, self-harm/cutting, police brutality, racism, homophobia, war, hate crimes, dissociation, panic attacks, gun violence, gore, fire/fire injury, vomit, ableism, injuries/injury description, abuse, abandonment, mention of the death of a parent, mention of rape, medical content/trauma, eye mutilation, body horror, mental illness, child abuse, and grief📚🎨

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Fire/Fire injury, Homophobia, Mass/school shootings, Police brutality, Abandonment, Blood, Body horror, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gore, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Physical abuse, Racism, Grief, Gun violence, Self harm, Vomit, War, Child abuse, Death, Ableism, Rape, and Violence

calamitywindpetal's review

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief and Death

Moderate: Self harm, Child abuse, Death, Violence, Police brutality, Blood, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Gun violence, Murder, and Drug use

Minor: Mass/school shootings, Infidelity, Death of parent, and Bullying