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economydreams's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
Graphic: Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Self harm, Rape, Physical abuse, Torture, Slavery, Sexism, Kidnapping, Violence, Suicide, Hate crime, Death, Blood, Racism, Racial slurs, Sexual violence, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic friendship, and Misogyny
Moderate: Vomit, Medical content, and Grief
trashely's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- 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
4.5
Graphic: Kidnapping, Racism, Sexual violence, Physical abuse, Slavery, Suicide, Rape, Domestic abuse, Gore, Vomit, Death of parent, Racial slurs, Violence, Torture, Hate crime, Death, Self harm, Murder, and Trafficking
robynrambles's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Misogyny, Slavery, Sexual violence, Emotional abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Hate crime, Kidnapping, Suicide attempt, Self harm, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Rape, and Violence
kaitlynbarrett'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
5.0
Graphic: Racism, Sexism, Racial slurs, Violence, and Slavery
Moderate: Sexual harassment, Self harm, and Sexual assault
mromie's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
We do not live in a time so far removed from systems and acts of oppression, violence, sexual torture, and racism as many would prefer to believe. With the blurring of time through time travel, Butler reminds us that the time from enslavement period was only few generations before us and could have been us too. To this day, enslavement exists in parts of the world, in places of war, and in renamed forms in America.
Robert Crossley’s Reader’s Guide had insightful comments, including:
- Butler: Science fiction has long treated people who might or might not exist — ETs. Unfortunately, however, many of the same science-fiction writers who started us thinking about the possibility of extraterrestrial life did nothing to make us think about here-at-home human variation”
- Butler “has redrawn science fiction’s cultural boundaries…deployed the genre’s conventions to tell stories with a political and sociological edge to them, stories that speak to issues, feelings, and historical truths arising out of African-American experience. In centering her fiction on women who lack power and suffer abuse but are committed to claiming power over their own lives and to exercising that power harshly when necessary, Butler has not merely used science fiction as a “feminist didactic,” in Beverly Friend’s terminology, but she has generated her fiction out of a black feminist aesthetic.”
- time travel as a metaphor and medium; “traveling to the past is a dramatic means to make the past live, to get the reader to live imaginatively, in the recreated past, to grasp it as a felt reality rather than merely a learned abstraction”
- Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a metaphor for the exclusion of women from acts of creation
- subtle parallels between Rufus Weylin and Kevin Franklin, system of white supremacist culture
- first hand narratives of enslavement vs Hollywood retellings and novels that sanitize or glamorize it
- Kindred as the title, literary kinship with the memoirs of formerly enslaved peoples, “chained to her ancestral past by the genealogical link that requires her to keep the oppressive slave master alive until her own family is initiated”
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Racial slurs, Self harm, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Hate crime, Ableism, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Emotional abuse, Gore, Violence, Racism, Rape, Classism, Colonisation, and Murder
hiagovinicius's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Racism, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Bullying, Torture, Grief, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Self harm, Toxic friendship, Gaslighting, Toxic relationship, War, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Chronic illness, Classism, Death, Violence, Murder, and Confinement
lillithofthepants's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
5.0
Graphic: Slavery, Pregnancy, Misogyny, Domestic abuse, Torture, Suicide attempt, Sexual assault, Sexism, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Colonisation, Child death, Racism, Self harm, Racial slurs, Sexual violence, Rape, Physical abuse, Murder, Miscarriage, Death, and Violence
ashybri's review against another edition
- 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? It's complicated
4.0
Graphic: Blood, Colonisation, Classism, Death, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Rape, Violence, Toxic relationship, Racism, Slavery, and Confinement
Minor: Pregnancy, Self harm, Child death, and Death of parent
linde_ahobbit's review against another edition
- 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? No
5.0
Graphic: Sexual assault, Self harm, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Rape, Slavery, Suicide, Physical abuse, Racism, and Violence
staceyinthesticks'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
4.5
Graphic: Racial slurs and Slavery
Moderate: Pregnancy, Rape, Racism, and Cursing
Minor: Physical abuse, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, and Blood