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4.01 AVERAGE
4.01 AVERAGE
adventurous
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
emotional
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I loved this book so much. It was exciting, it was socially relevant, historically revealing, and a perfect blend of all it aimed to achieve. The characters were very well-drawn, as was the plot.
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
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:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, Police brutality
Moderate: Death, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
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
Glad to see a nonwhite family at the center of a science fiction novel, but have very mixed feelings about it being written by a white guy. The trials they go through and abuse at the hand of various white people feel true but also gratuitous; it’s not clear to me why this novel needed to be set when it was nor why in a book containing magic this family couldn’t have been granted more agency or wins. On the other hand it feels important for a white writer to be able to admit this kind of wrongdoing via his irredeemable villains, but it’s a fine line sometimes between unflinching and gleeful. The denouement doesn’t feel like adequate or adequately explained justice for everything he put them through.
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
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
adventurous
dark
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This was definitely spooky! It takes kind of a lot to scare me with books and this one had me genuinely jumping on a few occasions. I think that I'd like to know more about the characters, and I wanted there to be a bit more cohesion in the stories, but overall I really liked this - especially Horace and Hippolyta's stories.
I feel weird rating this, though, since it's by a white guy writing from the perspective of Black folks in Jim Crow America. It made the whole thing feel slightly unreal (even beyond the whole magical realism thing).
I feel weird rating this, though, since it's by a white guy writing from the perspective of Black folks in Jim Crow America. It made the whole thing feel slightly unreal (even beyond the whole magical realism thing).
dark
inspiring
mysterious
tense
medium-paced