Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James

34 reviews

hello_kara's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense 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
If you have any triggers, just imagine this book as one big red flag. Horribly brutal and violent. Cruel and gruesome. Intensely graphic and crass. Disorienting and unnerving. 

This is not a comfortable or easy read. But content riddled with trauma should not be comfortable. Gratuitous mention of shit, piss, blood, rape, gang rape, genital mutilation, child abandonment and sacrifice, kidnapping, corruption, slavery, torture, dismemberment, and murder. Is the overall story still intriguing though? Yes. Not a book I could ever rate on a simple scale though.

“There was always someone or some two or some three who will grab me like a stick and break me, grab me like wet cloth, and wring everything out of me. And that was just the way of the world. That was the way of everybody’s world.”

Took me forever to get through this one, and I didn’t feel invested until about a third of the way through. That’s also about how long it takes to get to the advertised plot of the book. I was drawn in by the premise of an epic quest of a group of people each with different supernatural gifts, knowledge, or skill, with the goal of finding a missing child of prophecy. The story is told from the point of view of Tracker, The Red Wolf, and is being told to the Inquisitor questioning him regarding this quest. Rooted in African inspired mythologies and folklore, this quest takes them to several different cities, through cursed lands and hidden doorways, and they cross paths with a plethora of terrifying creatures. 

This book is the first in a planned trilogy, with each book more companion than sequel, telling the story from different points of view. I think it’s a very interesting concept, especially with unreliable narrators, a plot thick with political intrigue, characters with supernatural gifts and some with unnaturally long life spans. At times the writing was rich and easily immersive, other times disorienting with a stream-of-consciousness-mania. The style was so unlike other books I’ve read. 

Audiobook performance was excellent, but with the writing style it was difficult at times to tell when characters switched back and forth during dialogue. I did read along with the ebook for most of this which helped. There are also several maps and character lists at the beginning of the book. 

“We don't own truth. Truth is truth and nothing you can do about it even if you hide it, or kill it, or even tell it. It was truth before you open your mouth and say, That there is a true thing.”

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abnerbee's review

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

3.0

Incredible mythology and great lore but so, so graphic

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samanthaleereads's review

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adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0


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literarygrooves's review

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Really wanted to love this book but it just wasn’t working for me. Lengthy sections of dialogue not indicating who was speaking with more than 2 characters involved. Jumping timelines that made it difficult for me to get and stay involved in the main storyline. Usually these are things that work just fine for me, but in this case were executed in such a way that left me consistently confused. That on top of what felt like consistent misogyny, graphic violence & SA - If I was more invested in the story or characters, I would’ve probably found it worth my time to push through my issues but I found myself just not caring enough to push through another 400+ pages. Please check content warnings before reading this book!

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5aru's review

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad slow-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? It's complicated

3.75

I have very conflicted feelings about this book.

On the one hand, I loved the story, which weaves an impressive, multifaceted, intriguing plot. The twists are built up to but never predictable. The characters feel distant from the reader due to Tracker's wilfully detached narration, but they never once fall flat. And the worldbuilding! It builds such a perfectly wild, unpredictable, intricate world around the characters, full of myth continually intruding upon the realistic. Truly flawless work in that regard.

On the other hand, the novel is full of gore and violence, sexual and otherwise. It is ever-present and it is inescapable; definitely go over the content warnings. In particular, there is so much rape in this book, you can hardly go a chapter without a passing mention or a threat of it. Hell, you can hardly go a page without reading the word fuck. I'm not particularly squeamish about what I read, and don't mind profanity, but James' world is so defined by and constructed around senseless violence that it truly gets hard to stomach sometimes. If I hadn't been so intrigued by the plot, I would've probably stopped reading at chapter 8; even then, I find it difficult to justify. I can understand the decision to narrate violence of all kinds, but at times it really was so naturalized, so mindless, that it felt like simple shock value that added nothing to the narrative.

I cannot recommend this to everyone; it is a hard book to read even if the premise interests you. Go in with a warning — but I'd say, if able, go in anyway. It really is one of a kind.

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capybara5's review

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • 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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kaseyd's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense slow-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? It's complicated

2.0

I really wanted to like this book, but finishing it was an absolute chore. I knew very early on I disliked it but powered through to give it a chance. The audiobook was 24 hours long and truly maybe six of those hours were actually necessary to the plot. So much of this massive novel was unconnected random stories that were gross, repetitive, and a drag. I fell asleep listening to this, didn’t go back to listen to what I’d missed, and at no point was confused because nothing in the entire hour I slept was actually important to the story. I hate when authors think that for their fantasy to be taken seriously they have to make it disgusting, crass, and disturbing to read. This book is not worth all the time it takes. 

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emilyandthewhippet's review against another edition

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Slow, boring and trying too hard. Ten hours in and no change. I only made it so far as it was an audiobook and I really wanted to like it but... It just wasn't enjoyable. Life's too short.

Very graphic sex, murder, abuse and more. Not recommended.

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magehydrate's review

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
Wow this one took awhile because it’s so…. vile? Captivating? Pretentious? I feel really complicated about this book. It’s shocking to me that 1)it got published 2) it has so much hype. It’s literally on the featured shelf of the local feminist anarchist book store and I wonder if they have any idea what takes place in the book? 
Marlon James is clearly a talented writer, and also seemed to have done a lot of research into African (I believe specifically west african? could be wrong) legends and myths, but still this book was at times nearly impassable. Every type of extreme sexual violence is written about in great detail, including pedophelia, beastiality, sexual torture. The list goes on—I’ve actually seen a list going around of all the “triggers” in this book. The main characters are all foul people, even in the depths of their love or flaws, they reek. Tracker, the teller of the tale, may to be blame for that, for he is a man overcome with anger and nothingness and everything is through his eyes. Even when a violent act is not being done, the characters never have kind things to say, and often their dialogue is a threat, typically sexual in nature. Aside from the sheer amount of violence, James tries too hard to make the plot complex, and loses the thread for most of the book. What could have been a cool search party journey turns into something at times totally illegible because he’s trying so hard? The dialogue is almost exclusively nonsensical riddles, which at first is sort of engaging and requires close reading, but eventually one realizes that the riddles are not opening doors to greater meaning, but rather putting off meaning entirely. (Which might actually be on purpose? So much of the book is about stories and lies, the absence and construction of truth and story. What would a character who is without any meaning at all think of meaning?)Somehow, despite all that…I read the whole thing and was drawn into the world which was huge and imaginative. The monsters are interesting, and so are  the enchantments and magics, though they’re all cruel and disgusting (but shouldn’t magic be kind of unpleasant??)and I did find myself invested. It is hard to say what kind of development happens for the characters—for instance , Tracker hates women and that is brought to his attention almost 80% of the way thru the book, but the resolution is two vague sentences about finally seeing his mom again and crying at her feet. In fact it makes one wonder if James himself hates women, because he does address how little choice and mobility women have, even in this fictional non western fantasy realm, but there isn’t a single woman in the book who isn’t conniving, selfish and evil… But again, Tracker sort of admits at the beginning of the book that he might be lying, and we are reminded that this entire tale is through his lens. Man. this is a crazy book. There is so much to say about it and I know I will be thinking about it for a long time. Not sure if I will read the others in this series. Might write another review after some time, when I’ve had more time to think about it.

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arguhlincozzi's review

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It was honestly too dark for me. I was also going through a death of a friend and I couldn't handle that plus this book and its heaviness. 

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