Reviews tagging 'Xenophobia'

Falling by T.J. Newman

8 reviews

sophie42's review against another edition

challenging dark tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, Kidnapping, Xenophobia, Death, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Violence and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Cursing, Torture, and Vomit

tlaynejones's review

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Genocide, Kidnapping, Suicide attempt, Violence, Blood, Confinement, Xenophobia, Racism, Car accident, and Gun violence

cait's review against another edition

challenging emotional tense fast-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Minor: Blood, Child death, Medical content, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Xenophobia, War, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Suicide, Violence, Hate crime, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Genocide, and Gore

scburhans's review against another edition

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

2.0

Yeah, this book was not for me. This is for several reasons: the Islamophobia, the Xenophobia, the half-assed and shallow characterization, and (surprisingly) the pacing.
I found it really cheap and frankly disgusting that Newman chose to play into stereotypes and make the bad guys Middle Eastern/Islamic. It's 2022, it's time we stop demonizing an entire ethno-religous group because of the actions of a few men 20 goddamn years ago. There were moments where it felt like Newman was trying to overcome this, but it fell flat and just came off as in bad taste. The whole brown guy = bad guy bullshit is overplayed, overused, and fucking disgusting.
I also didn't care about 90% of the characters. Theo, Jo, and the kids were pretty much the only people I cared about and, not so coincidentally, they were the only ones with complex characteristics! Bill was such a cookie cutter, rah-rah-All-American hero character that I could not care less about. So much of the plot was unoriginal as well. There were whole chapters that were almost scene for scene recreations of a Criminal Minds episode, season 10 episode 3 to be exact.
Worst of all, somehow, I was bored throughout this entire book. I have no idea how she did it, but I could only read a few pages before I would get bored and go do something else for a while. Very rarely have I ever been so incredibly bored by a thriller. Somehow, it was both faced paced and slow as hell. Everything happened quickly, but it wasn't fast enough apparently.
Not my cup of tea, probably won't reccomend it to anyone either.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Confinement, Xenophobia, Murder, Racism, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Kidnapping, Islamophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide attempt, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Gun violence, Self harm, Car accident, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Physical abuse, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Vomit

stephr's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

1.0

If you’re looking for a book that feels like an episode of a predictable action movie this is it. Felt like a Season of Amazon’s “Jack Ryan”. Not a fan of the terrorist trope, problematic on many levels.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Islamophobia, Kidnapping, and Xenophobia

manon_misheck's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

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

2.25

It's been about a month since I've read this and I'm still having trouble giving it a review. On the surface, it's an engaging thriller with a great premise (can a pilot choose between saving his family or everyone on the plane?). I'm sure the movie will be great! However, I can't get past a few things, especially the careless casting of a Middle Eastern man as the plane-hijacking villain. This and the other harmful stereotypes the author played into for the other supporting characters as well as some White Saviorism made it difficult to enjoy the actual story. In 2021, there are many thrillers out there that have much more nuanced and thoughtful conversations around social issues, and I'd love to see more of those be developed into movies with as large of a budget as this one has.

CW: plane hijacking, kidnapping, Xenophobia, gun violence, suicide

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Kidnapping, Xenophobia, Gore, Violence, Islamophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, and Blood

linesiunderline's review against another edition

adventurous tense fast-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? No

3.0

The kind of book that reads like an action movie. It was certainly thrilling, and all of the behind the scenes detail  about piloting / flight attending felt spot on, clearly written by someone with lived experience. Casting the terrorists as Middle Eastern men is problematic, even though you can see the author attempt to manage that choice somewhat differently than the oft-written narrative. She doesn’t succeed there, however, because it’s all very surface, so we are still left with racist stereotypes.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Islamophobia, Violence, War, and Xenophobia

happiestwhenreading's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

• 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? N/A

4.0

I personally fell into this book very quickly and didn't come up for air until the last page. Newman totally took on a new twist to teh whole hijacked airplane trope and added a new twist that I was actually terrified of! Seeing how Newman is an ex-flight attendant herself, she was able to provide some insider information that lent to the credibility and suspense in a whole different way!

Also, if I'm being honest, this could have been a totally different experience had I read it prior to the horrific incident that is currently taking place in Afghanistan (Aug 2021). Without giving away any specific spoilers, some of the commentary really made me evaluate my own complicity and understanding of the US's position in Afghanistan.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Islamophobia, Violence, War, and Xenophobia