Reviews tagging 'Torture'

Leopardo Negro, Lobo Vermelho by Marlon James

86 reviews

minxtte's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Violence, Body horror, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Homophobia, Misogyny, Murder, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Blood, Cannibalism, Death, Excrement, Grief, Gore, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, and War

fox_at_the_circus's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark sad medium-paced

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

4.25

I really enjoyed this book. Tracker is a great main character and I love how sarcastic and cheeky he is. It makes the dialogues very funny. I liked the other characters, too. They're all well fleshed out and I like that we get a backstory for (almost) everyone.
The world this book is set in is super cool! With the main characters travelling all over the continent, we really get to see all the different cultures and cities and the differences between them. I also like how many different ways there are for people to gain some special abilities, magic, white science,.. some people, like tracker, just have a special ability and it never gets explained. It adds to the fantastical feeling of the world.

The ending really hurt me. Tracker got his nice life and a resolution and a family and it's only shown in a poem/song and then the last part takes it all away. I had tears in my eyes.

This book deals with a lot of heavy topics (see the trigger warnings), and in my opinion it does it pretty well, but it is definitely not for everyone.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Violence, Sexual violence, Rape, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Death, Grief, Homophobia, Misogyny, Murder, Toxic friendship, Vomit, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual content, and Torture

Moderate: Cannibalism, Confinement, Dysphoria, War, Child abuse, and Pedophilia

Minor: War and Xenophobia

jessthanthree's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Rape, Blood, Body horror, Violence, Sexual assault, Slavery, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Torture, Sexual violence, Murder, Grief, Child death, Child abuse, Death, and Gore

Moderate: Incest, Classism, Cannibalism, Pedophilia, Homophobia, Excrement, and Drug use

Minor: War

quietnyx's review against another edition

I almost always give books 100 pages to hook me, but I couldn't stomach any more than 60. Almost every page, of what I read, mentioned the rape of men, women, children, or animals and I couldn't do it. I also wasn't prepared for it; a lot of the positive reviews about this book seem to skim over this aspect and I'm not sure why. It is also incredibly slow and made me feel like I was reading the first draft ramblings of a man who wants you to think he's smarter than you. Every piece of dialogue was a riddle that felt like it was only written to be quoted in some literary circle jerk about all the ways you can describe genitals and gore. I'm sure his writing style is for someone, but it's not for me.

I thought the premise was interesting, but it's lost in the long-winded, tedious prose that would have really benefitted from a good editor. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Animal cruelty, Sexism, and Torture

devilsreject__'s review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

4.0

What a wild ride this was. Truth to be told it took me more than half of the book to get properly invested in the story and characters, and if not for this being a buddy read, I would have probably dnfed it. I am glad I didn't. I ended caring about certain characters way more than I though I will and at the end I did not want to leave this world no matter how fucked up it was. (Which means I will be picking up the sequel). 
There are a lot of trigger warnings for this book, and some messed up stuff felt meaningless, and maybe that was done on purpose for the sake of worldbuilding, however, it took away from some scenes were messed up stuff should have had more of an impact emotionally, especially in the middle of the story. Otherwise, Tracker's self discovery journey, if you could call it that, still moved me and the events that transpired involving him and the gang had an emotional impact on me at the end. I ended up absolutely loving Mossi and the Leopard, and how both of them were not afraid to challenge Tracker's questionable views and his hypocricy, but still loved him and stood by him. Legends. The banter between characters was one of the best parts of the book. 
Also, before I picked it up I did not notice anyone mentioning that this was LGBTQA+ and man that was a pleasant surprise. I feel like I'm rambling now, and this is my first review ever, so excuse me for not being equivalent enough. 
One more thing that grinded my gears a little bit, is that while the book has strong women in it, none of them felt like fully fleshed out characters and I hope the sequel will fix that. And please, less nipple and breast comments, there were one too many of those.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Torture, and Sexual assault

goddessssssssss's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

5.0

One of the weirdest books I've ever read, but one of the best. Based in a pre-colonial Africa, the story draws on native myths and legends to create a colourful and terrifying world.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Rape, Misogyny, Gore, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Sexism, and Sexual violence

nikki_readsss's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• 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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Violence, Torture, Vomit, Sexual violence, Child death, Murder, and Gore

justinlife's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad slow-paced

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

4.0

A love a pretty cover and this one is gorge. That’s the main reason I bought it. The book is really good. It’s also a black queer writer writing a black queer fantasy, which I didn’t know going in and LOVED!

It’s an epic, it’s mythology (and all the fuckery that entails), it’s fantasy, it’s a mystery novel, and it combines these genres nicely. 

I see comparisons to Game of Thrones, but I didn’t read those nor watch many of the episodes. Maybe the cruelness and the casualness of abuse and violence is similar. It was a bit rough to get through but overall it’s a really good book with a complicated story and complex characters. And also YAY BLACK QUEER STORIES!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Child death, Cursing, Gore, Grief, Rape, Death, Kidnapping, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, and Torture

Moderate: Incest, Cannibalism, and Infidelity

catsforlenny's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-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? Yes

3.0

I have such mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, the pacing is very slow so it's quite hard to get through, especially the first 200 pages. Also it has very graphic depictions of violence and rape and it's very dark overall. On the other hand, the writing style is very beautiful and I grew to love the characters.
Overall I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone, and I won't be reading the next ones in the series but I did enjoy some parts of it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Death, Gore, and Incest

annabelreading's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny sad 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? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Excrement, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Slavery, and Torture