Reviews with content warning for Racial slurs - James

Reviews tagging 'Racial slurs'

mrsmoy's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny informative reflective sad tense 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

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micha_reads's review

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adventurous hopeful inspiring tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

Holy shit! Most likely will be my favorite book of the year. My first Percival Everett, but surely not my last. 👏

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rachelle_reads's review

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced

5.0

Wow. What a masterful retelling of an iconic American story, this time from the perspective of Jim. Everett did not flinch when it comes to the treatment of slaves in the 1860s along the Mississippi River. And yet the author also brought in the right amount of humor and absurdity to make this book an eminently readable page turner. My favorite aspect was Jim and other slaves’ use of language among themselves and in front of white people.

I read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn decades ago and barely remember it. I don’t think reading it is necessary for enjoying this book.

I read part of this book on audio, and the narrator was fantastic.

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webslingingadam's review

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

James by Percival Everett it is a reimagining of Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn told from the runaway slave Jim’s perspective. It basically follows the events of Twain’s story before diverging in the later half and is a startling good mix of funny and heart breaking and hopeful and horrifying. I absolutely loved it and if I read a better 2024 release I will be pleasantly surprised.

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regnistegra's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective tense fast-paced

5.0

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stephe's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative reflective sad tense fast-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? It's complicated

5.0

“At that moment the power of reading made itself clear and real to me. If I could see the words, then no one could control them or what I got from them. They couldn’t even know if I was merely seeing them or reading them, sounding them out or comprehending them. It was a completely private affair and completely free and, therefore, completely subversive.”

James is truly phenomenal. A retelling that on its own rivals, even surpasses, the original, all the while in deep conversation with it—at times complementing, at times challenging—to create a stunning work of American fiction. A testament to the power and import of words—written, spoken, hidden, revealed—and to the deep interiority from which they spring and to which they tend.

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habeels's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful sad tense 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? It's complicated

5.0

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hannahchung's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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amalas_bookstop's review

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The easiest 5 stars I have given this year!

This book is a retelling of Huckleberry Finn through the perspective of Jim. From the start Percival Everett writes a Jim that is wise, but also cautious. The books starts with him teaching younger children how to live as slave in this world (how to stay under the radar, how to correct a white person while still making them believe they are right, etc.). From the beginning letting us know that the way they speak around white people is totally different than how they speak normally. Which I am eternally thankful for, because I hated reading Jims vernacular in Huckleberry Finn.

The book kept amazing pace amazingly well and in the end it almost read as a bit of a thriller (it has quite a bit of suspense). While Everett did change events of their adventures this came across as way more realistic to what would would have been for Jim to travel through the South. I saw this as an improvement. It was somewhat needed to give Jim a better character ark as he slowly shed the skin of slave and became James.

“I will not let myself, my mind, drown in fear and outrage. I will be outraged as a matter of course. But my interest is in how these marks that I am scratching on this page can mean anything at all. If they can have meaning, then life can have meaning, then I can have meaning.”

I totally recommend reading this after you read Huckleberry Finn, in fact schools should start recommending this as a package deal.

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ashoesmaker's review

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful informative reflective tense fast-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? It's complicated

3.5

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