Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

James by Percival Everett

8 reviews

bookb1itch's review

adventurous challenging emotional reflective 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

Timing!  This arrived on my final day of isolation with covid, so I got straight into it - when I could wrestle it away from my son!  Such intelligent commentary about race.  I'm now looking for Everett's back-catalogue, starting with Erasure, because I adored the film version "American Fiction".  It is so believably written, BUT I don't want to believe that African-Americans ever lived with this level of bigotry and mistrust.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Death of parent, Bullying, and Slavery

Moderate: Rape, Racism, and Hate crime

Minor: War

gregory_glover's review

adventurous funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• 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

Do not miss the Acknowledgments: “Finally, a nod to Mark Twain. His humor and humanity affected me long before I became a writer. Heaven for the climate; hell for my long-awaited lunch with Mark Twain.” That says it all?  What an amazing , incredible, beautiful, wonderful, brilliant novel.  He does the impossible, giving absolute agency, strength, 3-dimensional life, power, and dignity to Twain’s character.  “Jim” is now free….as James has always been. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death of parent, Rape, Torture, and Slavery

kerrygetsliterary's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• 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: Slavery, Alcohol, Child abuse, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Torture, Gun violence, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Death, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Murder, Sexual assault, and Trafficking

tiogair_rioga's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective tense fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Racial slurs, Racism, and Murder

Moderate: Child death, Child abuse, Rape, Violence, Sexual violence, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Death of parent, War, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Death, Grief, Kidnapping, and Pedophilia

amalas_bookstop's review

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Murder, Torture, and Sexual violence

Minor: Death of parent

franklola's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Trafficking, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Murder, Physical abuse, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Death of parent, Alcoholism, War, Child abuse, Confinement, and Injury/Injury detail

asims723's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional 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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Murder, Rape, Sexual assault, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Child abuse, Slavery, and Gun violence

Moderate: Child death, Death, Death of parent, and Torture

orla_h's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Racism, and Racial slurs

Moderate: Violence, Murder, Torture, Physical abuse, and Trafficking

Minor: Child abuse, Child death, Death of parent, and War