Reviews tagging 'Self harm'

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

2 reviews

asolis's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated

3.0

Little library find. Six stories nested within each other - you pass halfway through each until you reach the center and work your way back through each second half in reverse order. While the stories are clearly linked together, I expected a stronger connection to reveal itself over time. 

I admit most of them took a minute to get into and I almost quit the whole book about 5 pages in. But once you get the hang of each story's dialect it draws you in hard. 

A lot of racism and I often wondered whether it was for effect, "historical accuracy," or why it was necessary. But ultimately it contributes to the overall track towards anticapitalism and environmentalism, a warning against white supremacy and the havoc it has and will wreak upon our planet and its people. 

I was pleased to benefit from my recent reading of Brave New World and 1984, which are especially referenced in the 5th story. 

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frogggirl2's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

This reads like a series of loosely connected short stories and, like any short story collection, some pieces are better than others.   It feels quite disjointed at first but as you go along the connections become more and more apparent.

The writing is great.  There's a lot of substance here, but, for me there's just too much content.  This point has been made more clearly in other works.  The waters here just get too muddied - there's just too many plots to effectively convey the thesis.

**Also, a lot of racism, indicative of the period and disavowed by the book, but unpleasant.

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