Reviews with content warning for Police brutality - Lovecraft Country

Reviews tagging 'Police brutality'

Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff

33 reviews

songwind's review

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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rvoeller's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

I had added Lovecraft Country to my reading list after having watched the HBO show. I found the juxtaposition of the horrors of racism with supernatural horrors fascinating and thought provoking. The book did seem to not lean as heavily into some of the horror/supernatural elements as originally anticipated, but that did not detract from my overall enjoyment of the book.

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ninjamuse's review

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adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.75

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nyxtingale's review

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adventurous fast-paced

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

3.5

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alicelalicon's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

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peachani's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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ignescentsky's review

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced

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

5.0

Really interesting book, I guess the genre would be historical fiction or historical fantasy.

I picked this up because the premise of the tv series was really interesting but I knew I wouldn’t have an HBO max sub for a while and wanted to read the book first anyway.

It is short story format which I normally dislike, but they are all related and tie together nicely at the end so I’m willing to look past that. It did make it easier to read in shorter segments. With most of the stories I wished they had been extended a bit longer to add to the buildup/intrigue.

The stories are set some time in the 1950s and mostly follow various members/friends of a black family as they interact with the supernatural.

One of the many interesting aspects of this book was the brief exploration of tension between liking a genre and having to deal with its abundance of racist elements and authors. I appreciated that the author had notes at the end which provided sources on the history and sources of inspiration for the work; it sounds like someone wrote a larger piece exploring this which acted as inspiration.

Content warning for racism and sexism to a lesser extent, violence

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