Reviews tagging 'Islamophobia'

Beartown by Fredrik Backman

12 reviews

brookey8888's review against another edition

dark emotional tense slow-paced

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

4.0

This was good, but a very hard read. This is also insanely slow. I knew what this was about which I feel is low key a spoiler because the summary on the back doesn’t mention what happened. It was just so interesting to see how all the people reacted to this event and the motivation behind. This did make me so angry though. I honestly didn’t care about the hockey at 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Bullying, Blood, Physical abuse, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual harassment, Toxic friendship, Body shaming, Classism, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Sexism, Death of parent, Homophobia, Gaslighting, Suicide, Grief, Panic attacks/disorders, Injury/Injury detail, Islamophobia, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence

emmasafford725's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective 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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Homophobia, Gun violence, Suicide, Toxic friendship, Rape, Misogyny, and Islamophobia

jessicarosehutchings's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Islamophobia, Rape, Bullying, Misogyny, and Child abuse

jadedjill's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Sexual assault, and Rape

Moderate: Bullying

Minor: Suicide, Homophobia, Toxic friendship, Drug use, Mental illness, Islamophobia, Gun violence, Grief, Death of parent, Child death, Violence, Outing, Hate crime, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, and Classism

mroth's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious 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

4.0

In some ways the end of this book redeemed it for me, but mostly I need to sit with it for a lot longer before making a call. I thought the cast of characters was complex and fully realized and this was also a hard one to get through at several points. 

I think what it comes down to is, as much as he tried to be honest, this is a rape storyline written by a man who treats rape more as a concept and plot device than as an extremely personal and painful act of violence. There was so much distance in how it was dealt with, even from the “good” characters.

As an aside, having the three parallel men named Kevin, David, and Peter was REALLY confusing to me. I cannot explain it, but those are the same name and I had to think really hard to remember who they were talking about when. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia, Rape, Racism, and Islamophobia

edgaranjapoe's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective 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? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Bullying, Violence, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Classism, Rape, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Physical abuse, Sexism, Misogyny, Emotional abuse, Xenophobia, Child abuse, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, Grief, Sexual content, Homophobia, Medical content, Fatphobia, Blood, Child death, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Mental illness, Body shaming, Racial slurs, and Vomit

Minor: Eating disorder, Sexual harassment, Gun violence, Islamophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Ableism, Abandonment, Self harm, Stalking, Cursing, Dysphoria, Hate crime, Animal death, Cancer, Domestic abuse, Suicide attempt, Pregnancy, Panic attacks/disorders, and Murder

eavers's review against another edition

challenging emotional tense 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Classism, Homophobia, Islamophobia, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, and Violence

sumedhachaudhary's review against another edition

dark emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual assault and Rape

Minor: Islamophobia

megansmith's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-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

4.5

The writing in this book is well done - for having so many characters, its easy to follow who is who and remember each of their stories as the focus constantly shifts. Even some of the worst characters could be seen as products of their environments rather than generic representations of people. If you love digging into character backstories and psychologies, this is a great read. I have a hard time finding reasons to critique this book, my only cons were

the discourse the characters had around the rape was hard to read, but only because it was (unfortunately) realistic to what youd expect in real life to hear in this kind of scenario. It doesnt make it any easier to read, but I give props to the author for the realism.

My only other critique is it was sometimes difficult to get a sense of Beartown’s location - we got the sense some of Peter and Kita’s life was in Canada, but with the mention of moving to North America later on in the book, I got the sense this town isnt actually in Canada. Could be some late night reading confusion, but also this town could be in so many places. Overall its a well written, hard to believe its fiction novel. A hard read for sure but thought provoking if you can read it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Islamophobia, Physical abuse, Racism, and Suicidal thoughts

spalmon's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape

Moderate: Bullying, Alcoholism, Child death, Grief, Islamophobia, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence