Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

5 reviews

adam0k's review against another edition

adventurous dark sad tense fast-paced

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

4.25

Heartbreaking and beautiful. One of the most even handed books in terms of politics I’ve read in a while with a great great meditation on grief. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Xenophobia, Death, Islamophobia, and War

Moderate: Violence, Torture, Sexism, Racism, Misogyny, Gaslighting, Confinement, Toxic friendship, Hate crime, and Alcohol

Minor: Pedophilia and Rape

eve81's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Confinement, Islamophobia, Racism, Violence, Murder, Grief, Torture, and Religious bigotry

bexh's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Racial slurs, Grief, Islamophobia, Confinement, Death of parent, Religious bigotry, and Sexual content

stw07's review

challenging dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

2.0

Well, that was disturbing. 

I enjoyed the first quarter of the book, but that section is drastically different from the rest of the novel. Honestly I don’t know how I feel about it. It throws a lot at you, and makes you spend a lot of time in the perspectives of characters with disturbing viewpoints. And then the ending. 

This is actually a retelling of the Antigone myth. I only learned that from the author’s acknowledgments since I’ve never read it. I think knowing that would have been useful for interpreting it, although it does spoil some plot points.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Religious bigotry and Islamophobia

Moderate: Confinement, Murder, Sexism, Death, Misogyny, Torture, and Violence

Perspectives of members of extremist groups

k_aro's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad medium-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

I don't even know how to rate this book... first, that it's a modern retelling of Antigone. Nobody ever told me this! I've never read Antigone so I never noticed the similarity (unlike with Six Crimson Cranes, where I absolutely noticed the similarities). I think a reading of this book would definitely be helped or at least be more fruitful knowing some of Antigone.

That's neither here nor there; I feel strangely fulfilled by this book. It absolutely ends on a pretty desolate note (maybe one helped by knowing how Antigone is supposed to go?) and I felt strangely untethered. As a child of an immigrant (though a Chinese one, so I am absolutely not trying to say that these stories are necessarily comparable) there are definitely parts of this story that hit too close to home; the internal struggle between loving your parents and hating what they might stand for, trying to be radical and forward pushing but always with one hand on the railing.

It definitely explores the role of loss well; actually, thinking about it, this sort of reminds me of another book I had read (but had not enjoyed, at all): Consent. The confusion over how a lost thing is supposed to take up your life, a missing gap.

I was really compelled by Parvaiz' chapters, which

made me think a lot about the nature of pain and punishment, and how pain seems so holy just by virtue of suffering. I don't know, something about how Parvaiz is continually drawn back to Farooq despite or maybe because of the pain Farooq inflicts on him...

Anyways, it's definitely a good book. But I don't know how to recommend it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Grief, Islamophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Religious bigotry, Self harm, Torture, Toxic friendship, Xenophobia, and Death

Moderate: Police brutality, Abandonment, Sexual content, and Confinement

Minor: Alcohol and Death of parent