Reviews tagging 'Violence'

How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue

42 reviews

nikolas_fox's review against another edition

dark emotional informative sad slow-paced

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

5.0

This book is absolutely a must read. Please please read it!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Murder, Colonisation, and Sexual assault

paigeisinabook's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

Summary:

What happens when the land you call home is given away by your country to be poisoned by an oil company? As children fall sick and die, how long before enough is enough? What's the final straw? What does it take to make you want to, no NEED to, fight back?

Review:
I heard about this book from Jessie from Bowties and Books. They gave the book 5 stars and a rave review, so I had to pick it up. And I am so glad I did! 

This book looks at the hard lives of people affected by corporate greed and environmental disaster. While this story is unfortunately not unique, it is an important one to share and share often. I highly recommend this book for the multi-POV way it is written so you see multiple parts of the village's struggles making it one complete story. It is truly a triumph.

I've already recommended it to others and I hope you pick it up too!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Violence, and Death

annreadsabook's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring reflective sad tense 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Gun violence, Child death, and Terminal illness

bandysbooks's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense 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

4.5

This was one of those books that is incredibly sad and also based in reality, but so well written that you can’t put it down. The fictional village of Kosawa was very compelling and at points I wanted to step through the pages of the story to help them. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Death, Sexism, Terminal illness, Violence, Kidnapping, Gaslighting, Murder, Police brutality, Rape, Chronic illness, Grief, Gun violence, Infertility, and Genocide

biblioghoul's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Sexual violence, Grief, Violence, and Genocide

turophile's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-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? No

5.0

 What an amazing book.  It’s the first up for my book club this year and I listened to it on audio.  The recording was excellent.  The story is told through the view point of multiple narrators, which is particularly affecting in an audio book. 

 

It’s fiction, but one can see the parallels to real life.  It’s the story of a village in Africa that was colonized first for rubber, than for oil. The extraction of oil leads to health problems in the village, with children dying and suffering other ill effects.  The story focuses on how different characters react to the dominance of foreign corporations and corrupt local officials. 

 

Such a well done book. 5/5 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Murder, Rape, and Violence

raenyreads's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.0

The subject matter of this book was what drew me into reading it and I'm glad I did. I think if you don't know much about this aspect of the world its a really important read and shows how unfair the world can be. However, the jumping back and forth in timelines and points of view made this a bit boring and difficult to read as it felt like the story was progressing at a snails pace even without all the flash backs. So that's why my rating is a little lower than it would be if this was not the case.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Colonisation, Grief, Miscarriage, Violence, Blood, Child death, Death, Mental illness, Murder, Sexism, and Sexual assault

plumquin's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad slow-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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Death of parent, Gun violence, Sexual violence, Violence, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Xenophobia, Racism, Confinement, Suicidal thoughts, Police brutality, Murder, Mass/school shootings, Kidnapping, and Grief

Moderate: Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Rape, Fire/Fire injury, and Genocide

Minor: Stalking, Pregnancy, Religious bigotry, Infertility, Infidelity, Alcohol, Body shaming, and Homophobia

cabuff's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense slow-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? No

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Kidnapping, Mass/school shootings, and Violence

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Gun violence, Pedophilia, Rape, and Sexual assault

kylieqrada's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative 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

4.0

When thinking about my rating for this book, I discovered that it seems to be very polarizing. The narrative style and timeline was very intriguing to some while being incredibly off-putting to others. I align myself firmly with the former camp, and wholeheartedly enjoyed this book in almost all ways. The treatment of the children of the village as a character in and of themselves was novel and arresting, and the nonlinear timeline and multiple narrators being drawn from one family only enhanced my enjoyment. I would have given it a 4.5 ⭐s, actually, except for a confusing, and admittedly very subtle, discussion of homosexuality that, in my opinion, was not ever reconciled or handled in any satisfying way. I was in fact reading others' reviews to see if anyone else had been put off by this thread in the story, but didn't see anyone else discussing it. I will be interested to see Own Voices reactions to this book in that regard. I finally settled on 4 ⭐s for my rating, docking 1/2 a star for this element. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Homophobia, Incest, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Murder, Police brutality, Physical abuse, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Xenophobia, Violence, Torture, Terminal illness, and Rape

Minor: Slavery