Reviews tagging 'Kidnapping'

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James

40 reviews

thistlereads's review

adventurous medium-paced

2.0

Two ratings for this book. A very low rating for: rape, sodomy, profanity, beastiality and murders. Higher rating for excellence in audio narration and weaving story into story.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Sexual content, Kidnapping, Violence, Torture, Rape, Pedophilia, and Sexual violence

arguhlincozzi's review

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Kidnapping, Rape, Fire/Fire injury, Child death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Excrement, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Abandonment, Blood, Death, Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Cannibalism

nrhilmer's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Sexual assault, Violence, Abandonment, Body horror, Cannibalism, Cursing, Homophobia, Kidnapping, Trafficking, Child death, Death, Grief, Animal death, Blood, Gore, Infidelity, Transphobia, Infertility, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Sexual violence, Addiction, Alcohol, Excrement, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Torture, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Animal cruelty, Confinement, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Incest, Sexism, Rape, War, and Xenophobia

trippalli's review

dark sad tense medium-paced

1.0

This story alternated between offensive, upsetting and horrifying and boring or uninteresting... I am not easily bored but the plot was scant and the characters dark and mean mostly.. a few times I got interested in what might happen but then another chase began. It seemed like endless hopelessness in a race through the dark to save a kid that just never ended. I would've DNF this book of our wasn't an  audio version. Instead I died it up but it didn't improve

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, Kidnapping, Racism, Violence, Bullying, Child death, Adult/minor relationship, Homophobia, Infertility, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Excrement, Genocide, Gore, Sexual content, Panic attacks/disorders, Ableism, Animal death, Hate crime, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, Rape, Slavery, Toxic relationship, Body horror, Cannibalism, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Confinement, Grief, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Gaslighting, Incest, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Self harm, Sexual harassment, Trafficking, Physical abuse, and Sexual violence

cyngharris's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark sad tense 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? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, War, Vomit, Slavery, Misogyny, Sexual violence, Murder, Body horror, Death, Cursing, Cannibalism, Excrement, Blood, Rape, Sexual content, Injury/Injury detail, Trafficking, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Torture, Kidnapping, Death of parent, and Confinement

vedpears's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.25

What a challenging read - not because of the writing style, but because of the content. 
Abundant run on sentences took some getting used to, but I managed to navigate that just fine. 
I enjoyed how the story was written in such a way that it was like viewing a large photo by zooming in, then zooming out a bit, zooming in somewhere nearby, zooming out again until the whole picture is revealed.
What I did not enjoy was the overwhelming number of elements that would warrant trigger warnings: sex, rape, child abuse, pedophilia, slavery, bodily harm, mutilation, murder, combinations of all of those at once with a gratuitous serving of explicit language. 
The overarching story is intriguing. The characters and concepts borrowed from African history and mythology were woven in very well. If this were written to be less corrosive on the psyche, I would have rated it higher.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Toxic friendship, Trafficking, Biphobia, Blood, Body horror, Classism, Cursing, Gore, Misogyny, Vomit, Abortion, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Death, Death of parent, Kidnapping, Murder, Pedophilia, Sexual violence, Ableism, Addiction, Slavery, Stalking, Abandonment, Child abuse, Child death, Homophobia, Incest, Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Cannibalism, Emotional abuse, Dysphoria, Excrement, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexism, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Sexual content, Transphobia, Violence, and Xenophobia

It basically has all the trigger warnings, including infanticide.

zazreads's review against another edition

• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Torture, Kidnapping, Excrement, Sexual content, Rape, Violence, Death, and Murder

Moderate: Death of parent and Slavery

Minor: War

ren_fox's review

challenging dark 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Pedophilia, Gore, Violence, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Rape, Body horror, Child death, Misogyny, Death, Sexual assault, Infidelity, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Torture, Sexual violence, and Slavery

Moderate: Cannibalism

econsidine's review

adventurous challenging dark 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? Yes

4.25

This one took a long time to read, because it's 620 pages long and a lot of it is in a meandering pace and a lot of information is thrown at you that you may need to remember or recall. That said, I enjoyed it a lot. It's a twisty story spanning an unclear amount of years about a Tracker with a near-supernaturally-strong nose, his friendship/relationship with a leopard-man, a hired job to find a random boy who doesn't seem to exist, and also the Tracker's sort-of adopted children. If you like fantasy with inventive worlds and systems, if you like fantasy with a lot of characters and a complex plot that takes ages to progress, if you like books along the lines of GoT and The Witcher and The Broken Earth and are ready to jump into something new—this is a good pick for you.

NOTE THAT THERE IS A LOT OF HEAVY/DARK MATERIAL AND IMAGERY. I've tagged everything I can possibly think of below but have likely missed something. If you do not want to read something that involves any of the usual suspects of what people consider "dark" or "gory" or "messed up," then this is not for you. It's not a horror book, but it is often disturbing. And even for me—someone who loves fictional horror and grotesque shit and frequently reads books about cannibalism for fun—this one is a lot to get through and had me physically flinching at some moments while reading. It didn't read like it was just for shock value, as weird as that may sound, but the tone of the narrator through the whole book is very matter-of-fact, so many disturbing events are described in full detail but without much direct inflection/editorializing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Grief, Kidnapping, Murder, Sexual content, Body horror, Gore, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Slavery, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Abandonment, Sexism, War, Blood, Death of parent, Incest, Infidelity, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, and Fire/Fire injury

bookforthought's review against another edition

I really wanted to like this, as I loved the idea of an African-inspired fantasy but the constant stream of explicit violence, child abuse and sexual content on basically every page was just too much for me.
I liked the African mythology and the writing style was original and intriguing (it resembles the oral storytelling tradition), but the content was making it impossible for me to enjoy this. I might give this another try in the future, but for now it’s a no. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Violence, Sexual violence, Kidnapping, Child abuse, Gore, Sexual content, Pedophilia, Murder, Slavery, Death, and Child death