Reviews with content warning for Blood - There There

Reviews tagging 'Blood'

There There by Tommy Orange

86 reviews

bisexualwentworth's review against another edition

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

There There is the story of twelve indigenous people who end up at a powwow in Oakland, California. It traces their lives and their struggles and their relationships with each other in a gorgeously non-linear way.

There are so many interesting and experimental things going on in this book. There’s definitely a whole capstone paper about indigenous temporarily here. There’s a lot of interesting ruminations on Native identity and urban Native identity in particular (and I’m sure I missed a lot more as a white reader).

This is the first piece of long-form fiction that I’ve ever seen successfully incorporate first, second, AND third person point of view chapters as well as both present and past tense sections interspersed throughout the book (see earlier point about non-linear storytelling).

I read There There this week because it’s the Great Read at the library where I work and therefore kind of the book of the moment in my town. Tommy Orange is doing an author event that I tragically won’t be able to attend. It’s all very cool and I’m glad it got me to read this book!

I didn’t totally love this one, though. Some of the characters felt a bit too similar. The women in particular were all defined by sexual violence in one way or another, and while I know that it’s really important to talk about the horrible amounts of sexual violence faced by Native women, I wish that there had been more variety of women’s stories in this book. Maybe that’s unreasonable to expect from a cis man author. I don’t know.

Also, why did I think that Tommy Orange was queer? I’m pretty sure he’s not and the book is incredibly cishet, so I’m not sure where that idea came from. Oh well.

Please look at the very extensive list of content warnings if you have any of the major triggers. This book contains most of them.

Content Warnings

gilnean's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

Content Warnings

mekaylynn's review against another edition

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challenging emotional 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

4.0

Content Warnings

kibbles15's review against another edition

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challenging emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

2.5

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I did not like this book. There was way too much swearing for my taste. Also, if the chapters were not labeled with their names, I would not have been able to tell the difference between most of the characters. Pretty much, I felt like I was reading the viewpoint of 12 individuals with different problems, but the same personality; which made for a pretty flat read. Since this book is mostly character driven, this made the story difficult to follow and enjoy.

The prologue and interjections referring to the history of the Native Americans in the United States was actually very well written and thought provoking; the author obviously put a lot of thought and effort into the writing of those sections. That being said, the author failed to connect the story to the prologue and interjections. I spent most of the book waiting to find out why the prologue was included. None of the trials that each character experienced really linked the characters with their Native American history. In fact, if you take out the fact that the people are going to a Pow-Wow, the troubles that each of the characters experience could have been that of any race in most urban areas.

Content Warnings

ashylibrarian's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative sad medium-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

I finished the audiobook of There There by Tommy Orange yesterday. The stories are raw. They are real. They are emotional.

Orange tells the story of twelve (12) characters who live intertwined lives with one another. They all attend a powwow in Oakland, California, for different reasons, though their lives are not all to different from one another.

I was immediately drawn in to the ties and knots that connected each character together. Orange crafted the lives of each character so individualistically but also so very interconnectedly.

I won’t make any spoilers here, but the ending truly ripped a piece of me and left me frustrated, sad, upset, and confused. These stories may be fictional, but I can only assume there is truth behind the words that Orange wrote, sharing Native voices and stories, expanding hidden truths, and exposing unseen traumas.

Content Warnings