Reviews with content warning for Homophobia - Rosewater

Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

deb_is_reading's review

adventurous tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Positives: There were so much elements in this story that was just plain cool. The aliens, Kaaro's and other's abilities, the female characters are interesting and I wanted to see more of them.

Negative: So there were a lot of time jumps that weren't chronological. We'd jump from the 2060s to the 2040s to the 2060s again then to the 2050s and references to other time periods within those time jumps. It felt like I should have had a scrap piece of paper to keep track of things. It was a little bit of work to follow. The writing is fine and digestible though.

Sexual moments were also very jarring at times. Romantic moments between Kaaro and Aminat were fine but there were also moments of random erections and sudden moments of sex/sexual assaults. I try to give the author the benefit of the doubt but I felt that a lot of random bouts of sexuality were straight up not needed. It's so strange because our main character is a stated misogynist and we do see him grow a bit, but the random sexual bits kinda ruin it.

Further thoughts: I might be more interested by the next installment because I think we follow more perspectives.

Content Warnings

cassie7e's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

Fascinating worldbuilding/sci fi take. Love a setting that's not in the US or Europe. Works as a stand alone (thank goodness) though I will eventually continue the series.

The writing has a tone that feels very masculine and unrelatable to me (similar to how I felt about American Gods, though less offputting in this book), but books do not have to be relatable to be enjoyable! The weirdness kept me interested. Also I enjoy a nonlinear narrative.

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mine_gerber's review

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dark funny tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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shostakofish's review

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challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.75

Rosewater by Tade Thompson is the new rec for anyone looking for cyberpunk/alien contemplative scifi but in a new way. The author is British born Nigerian and so it has a really refreshing and new spin on what is usually a super cookie-cutter genre!

tbh i woulndt recommend it for completely new to the genre people because it specifically plays with tropes and is nonchronological narrative so it's not an easy starting point

also the audiobook has some beautiful voice work but the aforementioned nonchronological narrative format can make it difficult to follow, I had to rewind a lot

also it says 'fuck trump' explicitly at one point

I'd say a TW peruse could be a good thing if you (or anyone you recommend it to) are sensitive to book triggers. But the author is pretty clearly very left/accepting. The characters/plot are just not nice.

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librarianmage's review

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challenging dark mysterious 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

5.0

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mar's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious 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? No

3.5

really cool take on alien invasion/first contact! BIG fan the whole "telepathy" thing - telepathy is such a bizarrely common landmark of classic science fiction, and i loved seeing this book build on that legacy while actually adding a "science" aspect to it. kaaro's constant objectification of women was fucking exhausting tho

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therainbowshelf's review against another edition

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mysterious 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

4.0

The world building is excellent. I liked the shared mindspace created by alien fungus and enjoyed the book being set in Nigeria. The plot lost me a few times, but that's mostly because it was hard following the time jumps (between audio and the way I tend to process information). The side characters needed more characterization. I kept forgetting which woman was which. I did enjoy when one character told Kaaro that a woman in his life wasn’t a side character in his story.

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