Reviews tagging 'Trafficking'

Passeggiare la notte by Leila Mottley

196 reviews

samreads97's review against another edition

challenging emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot

4.0

This was one of the most challenging books for me to read this year. If it weren’t for the most beautiful prose and the love I felt for the characters, I don’t think I could have finished it. This book is a hard read and Mottley is an incredible talent for weaving so much truth into this narrative. As she brings up in a brief author’s note at the end, it’s not often that these stories in fact or fiction get told from the victim’s perspective. This book really drives home how circumstances and survival force people to make choices no one would ever want to resort to. It also speaks to power dynamics and the trauma policing inflicts on communities. As hard as this book is, it also manages to be beautiful and extremely empathetic and I’m glad to have read it 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality, Death, Addiction, Sexual assault, and Trafficking

writingcaia's review against another edition

challenging emotional sad tense slow-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? No

4.25

Very powerful, touching, and heartbreaking - a tale that tells of the injustice, the blindness, the erasure of Black and Brown women.
This is the story of a girl that has to grow up too fast when her widowed mother goes to jail and she has to take care of her older brother that wants to pursue a doomed to failure music career and a little boy who lives next door whose mother is an addict and never around. But, how? She’s only seventeen, she can’t find a job. Desperate she takes the darkest plunge and starts walking the streets breaking her feet and her soul, giving herself to the worst of men. In her Nightcrawling she meets an older woman with a pimp and she considers it but then she’s almost arrested and the police start using her. And, the rest you need to find out.
It’s a devastating story of how doing your best can mean the worst for you, when trying to come clean can devastate your life, but it’s also about love for others, supporting the weakest, being there for your loved ones, and doing the right thing, even when it’s wrong, even when it can cost you.
The writing is beautiful but did feel weird and repetitive at times, taking you a bit from the story, but that’s the only flaw I found.
The friendship between our girl and bff, the love between her and the little boy she takes care of, it really made my heart swell, even if amidst such tragic and life threatening events.
It’s definitely a must read debut if the theme interests you.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual harassment, Police brutality, Racism, Sexual violence, Rape, and Child death

Minor: Trafficking

clemben's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Police brutality, Violence, and Trafficking

hannahmartian's review against another edition

challenging dark informative 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? No

4.0

A really difficult read because of the weight of the content but I’m grateful for the representation this gives to survivors/victims of police violence

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Abandonment, Police brutality, and Trafficking

Moderate: Self harm, Suicide, Pedophilia, and Child abuse

Minor: Transphobia and Vomit

zoinkie's review against another edition

dark emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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: Murder, Suicide attempt, Child abuse, Classism, Death, Drug use, Gaslighting, Sexual assault, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Trafficking, Alcohol, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Sexual harassment, Police brutality, Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, and Death of parent

_meeg's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, Rape, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual harassment, Suicide attempt, Grief, Sexual assault, Domestic abuse, Child death, Death, Cursing, Suicidal thoughts, Kidnapping, Trafficking, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Murder, Gun violence, Abandonment, Sexual content, Violence, Addiction, Racial slurs, Child abuse, Hate crime, Police brutality, Classism, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, Drug abuse, Racism, and Sexual violence

anna_in_the_spring's review against another edition

challenging dark sad medium-paced

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

2.5

Rating this book is really difficult. I can tell that it is a good book. It just really wasn't for me.
The writing is lyrical, which I only like sometimes. While I thought it was okay in this book, maybe that was because I had a much bigger problem with the language that is being used. In dialogue and sometimes also in internal speech African American dialect is being used. And I hated that. Let me explain. I am a non-native English speaker with dyslexia. Slangs and dialects in written English ( and any other written language I understand) irritate me greatly. I am at a level of reading comprehension with regular English where I can just read the text. Written dialects trigger my dyslexia and slow me down a great deal and make understanding difficult. They are like another foreign language. And I don't have the energy to deal with that. I just want to read a book, not struggle with a language that to me, who had such a hard time learning the original language, seems just wrong and like someone is playing a malicious prank on me. 
I understand that this is not the intention and I don't have a problem with the existence of dialects. Just with having to read them. I try avoiding these kind of books.
I still struggled through the book , skimming over some parts, because it is a good book. And I understand why the language is as it is. It just wasn't for me. That's fine. 
I didn't enjoy the plot, but I don't think you're supposed to. I'm not a big fan of tragedies, so again, not really for me. The subject matter is also thankfully very far removed from me. Still, if the dialect hadn't been there, I might have been able to enjoy the book, the way one enjoys a tragedy. Like this, I was never really able to get into it.  But without the dialect it would have been a different book. So, again, this was just not for me. And that's fine.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Child death, Death, Trafficking, Drug use, Police brutality, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide attempt, Sexual content, Sexual violence, and Suicide

kmbutcher's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Misogyny, Sexual violence, Police brutality, Trafficking, Death of parent, Rape, Sexual assault, Transphobia, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Classism, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Racism, and Suicide attempt

slopez123's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad medium-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? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Murder, Rape, Trafficking, and Sexual assault

samantha1960's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

This story is heartbreaking and absolutely unnerving but so beautifully written it’s hard to put it down once you pick it up. Kiara is a character I’ll think back on for years to come. An unbelievable debut novel.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcohol, Blood, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Trafficking, Sexual violence, Vomit, Suicide attempt, Violence, Death of parent, Rape, Sexual assault, Grief, Pedophilia, Racism, Self harm, Death, and Police brutality