Reviews

The Quiet Violence of Dreams by K. Sello Duiker

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pmrichard1's review

4.0

Loved this - incredible insight into South Africa, homosexuality and race told through various characters but mainly focused on one. Really really well done and beautifully written.

rego_11's review

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emotional 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

K. SELLO Duiker had my tears falling onto the pages, asking myself how did he come to write such heart-wrenching book with compelling characters.

quinoa_x_chaos's review

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dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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auri_underthing's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced

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

1.5

I would rate this book lower if it was just my personal opinion; but I can’t ignore the fact that the writing was good.
(The endless monologues were tedious though)
Even so I didn’t like how crude and brutal it was. Also Zebron needs to be scrubbed from existence.
This isn’t my type of book and I only read it because I had to for school.

Content Warnings

potion96's review

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challenging dark emotional slow-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

3.0

This story pulls you in, the beginning was hard work to get into, but every time I wanted to stop it kept reeling me back in, it was so compelling in its raw honesty.

It was rather verbose and bloated at times. The story felt like it was continually interrupted by pages and pages of exposition and monologuing and sometimes the character development was sacrificed in order to shoe-horn in paragraphs of what felt like lectures. There was also an undercurrent of misogyny throughout the entire book that I didn’t feel was ever really confronted and I didn’t enjoy that.

Content Warnings

theaceofpages's review

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challenging dark reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.0

"But we're not backward. Most of what you guys call progress, those are just things. They don't make your life any better, maybe quicker. But they don't make you better people, inside. That is real progress. Anyone can have things. You can't even take them with you when you die."

This is not an easy book to read. It delves into a lot of difficult and often uncomfortable topics (including, but not limited to, racism, male prostitutions, sexuality and homophobia and xenophobia and classism). But wow, the author does this well. Some parts of the book feel a little rough and could maybe have been edited a little more, but Duiker conveys his message incredibly well. The story is dark and sad and broken in so many ways and we learn to see just how fractured all of the characters are. It is definitely worth a read, but be warned that it is dense (even with how long it is) and you my need something a little lighter to take breaks with.

Content Warnings

shaun_lunga's review

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challenging dark reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

stachmou77's review

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4.0

It was a ride. Quite honestly, I didn't know what I was in for and I'm kind of at loss. I don't really know how to review this book.

So, I'll give the trigger warnings: suicide ideation, rape, murder, drug abuse, child neglect, death, racism, abuse/neglect in a mental facility.

It was eye opening. The writing is different from I'm used to but you easily get used. It adds a little something to the story. The main characters were relatable even thought I wanted to throttle them.

joti's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

There were parts of the novel I really loved. The way different characters have their very distinct language(s) and how there are elements from Afrikaans and other languages mixed in was really nice. There were some really strong images and I was curious about the main characters, but for some reason the book didn't work as a whole for me. It seems to contain a bit much for just one story, and certain bits feel underexplored while other bits go into a lot of detail. I don't mind philosophical discussions or 'deep' thoughts, but it was sometimes hard to understand the point and towards the end of the book things just went in a completely different direction from what I would have expected (and, for me at least, not in a good way). I like that the book dares to be explicit where relevant and that it gives an insight into the darker world of Cape Town and the layered and different points of view on racism and colour, but it just didn't work for me as a complete story.

ghostcities's review

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

My humanity has been suffocated all my life, it says. I have had to struggle for it, to show people that I am a person. Isn't that madness?

Content Warnings

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