Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

8 reviews

miller8d's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious 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

4.5

Changed my relationship to books and reading. One of the best books I have ever read. I highlighted so many passages that the Kindle highlight collection was literally 26 pages long.

Cried several times both out of happiness and sadness. Beautifully captures the actual sensations of love and loss and grief, and the gorgeous nature of children and animals and family, queer love and neurodivergent pain, and so much more. Refreshing poetry and ridiculously beautiful world-building in such intricate historical contexts. Addressed so many different issues and experiences with such flair and emotion. Delivers anarchist / anti-establishment / leftist values from the optimistic perspective that to be human is to be a part of the problem, and yet, we must love one another and love the Earth in order to power through the pain of life in order to radically experience the love, because that’s why we are here.

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Religious bigotry, Suicidal thoughts, Classism, Trafficking, Xenophobia, Racism, Physical abuse, Genocide, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Homophobia, Sexism, Abandonment, War, Slavery, Gun violence, Colonisation, Mass/school shootings, Violence, Torture, Panic attacks/disorders, Murder, Mental illness, Child death, Child abuse, Suicide, Chronic illness, Terminal illness, Grief, Medical trauma, Animal death, Forced institutionalization, Death of parent, Death, Confinement, Racial slurs, Bullying, Kidnapping, Suicide attempt, Injury/Injury detail, Excrement, and Animal cruelty

I am very sensitive and I LOVED this book and found it deeply emotionally uplifting despite these very severe content warnings

carla20's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad 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? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Confinement, Death, Hate crime, War, and Gun violence

Moderate: Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, and Mass/school shootings

margaret_k30's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Abandonment, War, Toxic relationship, Violence, Gun violence, Xenophobia, and Animal death

Moderate: Suicide attempt, Racism, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Death of parent, Xenophobia, Pregnancy, Police brutality, Grief, and Homophobia

naomi_k's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring tense 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Racism, Blood, Bullying, Death, Forced institutionalization, Abandonment, Xenophobia, Chronic illness, Confinement, Dysphoria, War, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Religious bigotry, and Violence

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Hate crime, Animal death, and Homophobia

Minor: Medical content, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Child death, Excrement, Alcohol, Sexual content, Misogyny, Child abuse, and Domestic abuse

bookpilerjo's review against another edition

adventurous challenging hopeful 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? Yes

3.0

I have mixed feelings. I had expected to love this book and there were lots of things I liked,  but at times it felt like a slog. I am usually a fan of multiple points of view but I think the changes were too quick and frequent and some of the narratives progressed too slowly for too long. In spite of this, when I got into it I found I really did care about the characters and I was interested in their worlds. I also enjoyed seeing how the threads came together in the end. It was disappointing that the portrayal of the one neurodivergent character played into damaging misconceptions and stereotypes. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, War, Animal death, Death, and Ableism

Moderate: Ableism, Xenophobia, Racism, Chronic illness, Homophobia, Gun violence, and Death of parent

wenwanzhao's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

It was a slow start, but I really did come around to Cloud Cuckoo Land by the middle of the novel. It was a bit confusing to understand what was happening between the multiple years and perspectives at first, but I ended up really enjoying it. I adored All The Light We Cannot See, and while CCL doesn’t have the same oomph factor, I can’t help but be charmed by Anthony Doer’s way of telling interconnected stories that last many years. I also love the theme of stories connecting people through time. It seems a bit self-important for an author to say that, but it really is true. I ended up enjoying CCL quite a bit. 4 stars. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gun violence, Death of parent, Homophobia, Xenophobia, Medical content, Child death, Racism, and War

thebakerbookworm's review against another edition

adventurous challenging hopeful mysterious reflective sad slow-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? Yes

4.0

This book has a lot of moving parts, many narrators and timelines, and listening to the audio, it did take me a while to get into it. I was confused for a lot of the first half. We have five different perspectives: Konstance, sometime in the future where she's spent her whole life on a spaceship; Zeno and Seymour, both from Idaho and living in the modern present day; and then young Anna and Omeir, in fifteenth century Constantinople, as it's about to fall. On top of all that, we also have a story within a story going on. The narrative jumps around from each of them a lot, and it definitely took me a while to get my bearing.

That being said, once I got a good grasp of the story, I was invested. There's excellent storytelling going on here, almost mesmerizing. I was most interested in the future and present timelines—everything about the spaceship and Konstance was fascinating, and Zeno stole my heart. I love a book where disjointed storylines suddenly make sense at the end, when you see how the thread of connection was running through them the whole time, and that's exactly what happened here. The last third of this book really made me love it.

It's hard to describe this book and what it made me feel, but I think it's best described as an ode to storytelling and how stories can connect us across space and time. I do perhaps wish some different editing choices were made in the first half, but if you can trudge through it, the ending is definitely worth it.

Thanks so much to Libro.fm, Simon Audio, and the author for my ALC!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Bullying, Death, Grief, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Violence, and War

unphilosophize's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring 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? Yes

4.0

This book is so much different than Doerr’s first. 
I love the way the narratives intertwined 
Zeno’s story was by far my favourite
Comp to cloud atlas in feel. Also aspects of station eleven
I feel I need to think about this book more

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Bullying, Death, Grief, Homophobia, Islamophobia, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Racism, Religious bigotry, Violence, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Animal cruelty and Animal death

Minor: Dementia