Reviews tagging 'Xenophobia'

Linn ja linn by China Miéville

15 reviews

lynxpardinus's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Cursing, Death, Gun violence, Violence, Police brutality, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Deportation

Moderate: Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Mass/school shootings, Car accident, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, and War

Minor: Drug use, Sexual content, Sexual violence, and Antisemitism

runefactories's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence and Police brutality

Moderate: Racism, Xenophobia, and Murder

Minor: Antisemitism and War

booitsnathalie's review against another edition

mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

Just wrapped it up. It's a very good detective novel though I think it's political allegory sort of falls apart by the end (or at least to the wayside). Lands in a disappointing ambiguity about the role of police and borders, seeing them as both fully artificial and hostile but also necessary because the alternative is total anarchy. I maybe expected something a bit more given Mielville's clear interest in leftist politics, but it was really closer to a Dan Brown novel but

where the conspiracy is actually just a sad man with something to prove.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Xenophobia and Gaslighting

Minor: Gun violence and Sexual assault

byrdies's review against another edition

adventurous challenging tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Gun violence, and Murder

Minor: Racism, Xenophobia, and Antisemitism

booksthatburn's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

THE CITY & THE CITY is a detective story in a strange but non-magical setting which manages to feel as off-kilter and wondrous as some fantasy worlds, but without the level of vivid detail that would usually imply. 

I love the immersive world-building in THE CITY & THE CITY. This was my second time reading it, and I caught the little hints that I didn't know how to place or didn't understand the importance of the first time I read it. The interplay between the city and the city is too interesting of a thing to spoil here, suffice it to say that there is a definite sense of place in the book. I appreciated the finicky bureaucracy and red tape bound up in this premise. It has a singular focus on the MC and his understanding of events as he tries to solve a woman's murder in his city. My one quibble is that it feels like the book shifts away from trying to solve her murder and becomes focused on the circumstances in a way that felt like it decreased the importance of her death. It was easy to forget by the end that this was a murder mystery and not just a story of political intricacies and border crossings. Part of that is because her death isn't the central mystery, really, she's a catalyst for the real story of this guy and his place in the cities. The MC cares about her death the whole time, to be clear, he just has to deal with a lot of other stuff. Between that and the choices over who dies and lives in the confrontation at the end, it did leave a bit of a sour taste for me in how the secondary characters were treated. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Gun violence, Violence, and Xenophobia

Minor: Drug use, Racism, and Antisemitism

CW for racism (minor), antisemitism (minor), drug use (not depicted), assault (not depicted), xenophobia, gun violence, violence, major character death, death.