Reviews tagging 'Rape'

Blonde Roots by Bernardine Evaristo

28 reviews

dnietoperafan's review against another edition

dark emotional funny informative reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

Bernardine Evaristo is one of my favourite authors... and she smashed it with this novel. It has the perfect balance between humour and seriousness. Evaristo doesn't shy away from important topics to be discussed, and I'm glad she adds her literary touch to them.
I would 100% recommend this book to anyone. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Physical abuse, Trafficking, Murder, Kidnapping, Suicidal thoughts, Rape, Child abuse, Slavery, Violence, and Colonisation

aseel_reads's review against another edition

dark tense fast-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? It's complicated

5.0

This was a really well done what if universe. I liked how all the characters were connected. I enjoyed the writing and everything really 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Racial slurs, and Violence

Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Child abuse, and Murder

feeohnaemily's review against another edition

challenging dark hopeful sad tense medium-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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Colonisation, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Sexual violence, Slavery, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Violence, and Torture

Moderate: Suicide, Suicide attempt, Excrement, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Rape, Alcoholism, Suicidal thoughts, Alcohol, and Child death

rosysnake's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation and Slavery

Minor: Violence, Sexual assault, Alcohol, Suicide, Torture, Kidnapping, Trafficking, Sexual violence, Rape, Murder, Deportation, and Child death

jennikreads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional relaxing sad tense medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail, and Slavery

Moderate: Torture, Rape, and Sexual assault

Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Grief

amyvl93's review against another edition

challenging funny reflective 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

2.75

I have loved both of the previous Evaristo novels I've read, so perhaps I was due one that didn't quite land as well for me. In Blonde Roots , Evaristo takes an alternative look at history - where white people are enslaved and black people are the ones exploiting their labour and experiencing the benefits of labour. Our story is narrated by Doris, a young white woman whose rural childhood is disreputed when she is snatched from fields in England and sold into slavery.

It is clear that Evaristo had a lot of fun playing with places, geographies and what a world steeped in black culture for hundreds of years would look like, in comparison to one dominated by white culture. There's some interesting reflections in particular on beauty standards and relationships - however, after a while these start getting a little grating. Whilst the sense of place of individual locations is strong, the narrative also feels at times unmoored from a sense of time - is this taking place now, in the past, somewhere in between?

What does makes this book readable still is Evaristo's impactful writing; her reinterpretation of the middle passage is excellent, as are scenes later on in the novel where Doris really starts to feel the horrors of her situation.

I'm not necessarily sure I would recommend Blonde Roots as a place to start with Evaristo's work, but for completists it's probably worth a read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Slavery, Murder, and Torture

Moderate: Sexual assault and Rape

mx_sunshine's review

dark emotional medium-paced

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

4.5

I really loved reading this book. It felt quite satirical at the beginning and made me laugh at some descriptions. I quickly began to feel uncomfortable. This book made me question myself by allowing me to reflect.
I love Bernadine Evaristo, I want to read everything she’s written. I love how she describes characters. This was a very surprising story that fully explored an intriguing premise.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Violence, Kidnapping, Torture, Child abuse, Rape, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Slavery, Miscarriage, and Murder

Moderate: Excrement, Vomit, and Pregnancy

Minor: Gun violence and Fire/Fire injury

ivulikkivulik's review against another edition

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Rape, and Slavery

alexreadsall's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective 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? It's complicated

Bernadine Evaristo is a genius. I love her mind and her writing so much. Blonde Roots is her debut and even in this you can see how good she is going to be.
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This book explores the idea of power and what absolute power can do. Blonde Roots asks the question ‘what would have happened if the African peoples had come to enslave white Europeans instead?’ And what an exploration it was.
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I don’t really know how to talk about this book. In a lot of weird ways I loved it because of Bernadine Evaristo’s pure writing ability. She has such a way with words and characters that it’s hard not to love what she writes. But it wasn’t an easy read in a lot of different ways. The horrors that happen to the whyte slaves inflicted by their blak masters are graphic and she just lays it all out without apology.
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I have to admit I had a hard time remembering that our main character was whyte. I had to consciously remind myself that this was a fictional made up history and that everything was flipped. Which might have been part of Evaristo’s point. That absolute power over others will eventually and always lead to the same horrific results. Regardless of race.
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I’m not a scholar, I’m not even a college graduate so I’m not sure if I have the language to talk about this book. But it made an impact and I think that what Evaristo did was incredible. It didn’t change how I feel about history and it didn’t give me sympathy for white people but it did help me to explore how power works.
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Here’s the deal I will read anything that Bernadine Evaristo has written or will write. I’m glad I read it because it’s such a unique idea, taking a race of people who historically have always had the power and taken whatever they wanted and taking that power away from them in the most horrible way possible. It’s clever and at times darkly funny and the way she takes every aspect of that awful time in history and made it about whytes was brilliant.
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I guess all of this is to say I liked the book with caveats. And I would love more people to read it so I can chat with others about it. If you have read it please let me know so we can chat!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Violence, and Racism

zoebill96's review against another edition

challenging reflective sad slow-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Slavery, Child death, Classism, Cultural appropriation, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Murder, Sexual assault, Trafficking, Death, Torture, and War