Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Bratnia dusza by David Diop

45 reviews

maya7's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad 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

Narrated by Alfa, a Senegalese soldier serving in the French army during World War I. Facing the painful death of his almost brother-like friend, Alfa was slowly falling into a pit of madness and finally collapsed.

Repetitive sentences were a bit hard for me to get into the story at first, but I was horrified reading the last chapter and went back to the first page again, then the story felt different with more understanding about the background. 

A dark and powerful novella about the violence and madness caused by war and colonialism.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Murder, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, and War

Moderate: Colonisation, Racism, and Racial slurs

Minor: Kidnapping

rebeccaquinton's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual content, Kidnapping, Grief, Violence, Murder, Racism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Blood, Torture, Abandonment, War, Suicide, Sexual violence, Mental illness, Gore, Death, and Colonisation

carmen's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, War, Death, and Violence

amselot's review against another edition

challenging dark medium-paced

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

1.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Gun violence, Blood, Gore, Torture, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual content, Violence, War, Sexism, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Suicide

Minor: Death of parent

emilia_digi's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, War, Blood, Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Murder, and Racism

aperl1's review against another edition

dark

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Violence, Colonisation, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and War

Moderate: Blood and Body horror

chichio's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

“God’s truth, that’s how things go, that’s how the world is: each thing is double.”

Jesus Christ. This was such a searing experience. I couldn’t put the book down…I literally read it all in one sitting. 

This book takes on large themes despite it being such a quick read. In this narrative, Diop speaks on race, war, toxic masculinity, and the way these three things aggravate one another, coming together to create a complex discussion on humanity, and the loss thereof. 

It’s a dark, unbelievably bleak read, yet it’s still poetic and beautifully literary—I found myself highlighting a lot of lines. The character voice in this is so strong and disturbing; Diop drags you into the mind of our protagonist, Alfa, and forces you to accompany him during his descent into madness. In the latter half of the book, as Alfa grows narcissistic, you begin to sense that he’s not just an unreliable narrator, but also an unbelievably unlikeable one, worn down into something ugly by grief and guilt. 

The prose is filled with repetition. Repetition of phrases, themes, and metaphors, but it works. It works. They perfectly highlight Alfa’s mental state, and the nonlinear narrative confuses you and forces you to keep up with him as his mind bounces between the past and the present, reality and delusion. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Grief, Classism, Sexism, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Xenophobia, War, Death, and Sexual assault

tamingofthedew's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Blood, Body horror, Murder, Kidnapping, Rape, and Injury/Injury detail

awaywiththefairies's review against another edition

dark sad fast-paced

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

2.5

I was really hoping to get behind this story. A tale of war, grief, violence and a struggle to keep our humanity. This book fell short of my expectations to say the least. 

It's a short book but goes on forever. The story follows a character that starts to unravel after what he has done in this war zone though I see no struggle on his part to keep his humanity. Thought of as an animal by his forst behaviour, this seems to encourage him or even jsut make him give up and he begins to act and think like one. 

A random SA scene in it with glorifying language made me question why it was even in the book. I really dislike when authors do trauma for trauma sake. Perhaps this was to say the character has always been a bad person? One can only debate on that.. 

A book about a man who looses control, not much growth or plot happens other than that and I really don't know why its won the prize it has. Its well written, for what it's worth, but the unexplained or resolved addition of triggered content isn't something I can get behind.

I feel like it needed to be much longer to really express this character.  
Despite all its attempts to shock us, it was just a bit boring too.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Rape, War, and Torture

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Colonisation, Gore, and Blood

ncghammo's review against another edition

challenging dark sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Rape, and War