Reviews with content warning for Murder - Glory

Glory is an allegory of Animal Farm set in the historical background of the Zimbabwe revolution (1980s-2019). We follow various animals as they fills roles of historical figures and we see how dictatorship follows the patterns laid out in Orwell's fictional piece.

This was a very compelling and emotional story. I loved the way repetition and humor were used as tools in the narrative. The audiobook narrator (Chipo Chung) was absolutely incredible and brought a rhythm to the story with the way they repeated words with various intonations.

Bulawayo did a beautiful job of crafting this intricate historical fiction. I am glad I read this immediately following Animal Farm. Such an interesting juxtaposition. There were so many characters followed in this story, but I was most invested in Destiny's and my heart felt all the emotions. *insert tears*

Rep: All Zimbabwean cast.

CWs: Violence, genocide, war, rape, police brutality, murder, colonisation, death, gun violence, grief, misogyny, sexual assault, torture, blood, classism, sexual violence, religious bigotry, sexism, injury/injury detail, child death, gore, physical abuse, racism. Moderate: suicide (off-page action, on-page mention), xenophobia, mass shooting, death of parent, animal death, body horror, cursing, homophobia/homomisia, slavery, panic attacks, fire/fire injury, vomit.

Content Warnings

orla_h's review against another edition

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challenging funny hopeful inspiring medium-paced

4.75

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olivialambert97's review against another edition

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challenging dark funny hopeful informative reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.5

Powerful and poetically written

Content Warnings

mariah_reads's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative slow-paced

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

2.0

This was a hard read, but I also learned a lot and it forced me to educate myself. It needed to be cut by 100 pages, and maybe should have been short stories. But there were gripping vignettes.

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differentsisters's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.5

I see what the author was trying to do. Once I got use to the inclusion of Zimbabwean dialect, the book was readable. What became tiring was the heavy heavy use of repetition (a whole page of just the word take). I could see why some uses of repetition was used, but it became tiresome and felt like an editor needed to cut at least a hundred pages of repetition.

Content Warnings