ness's review against another edition

Go to review page

informative reflective medium-paced

4.25

lyssthericeball's review

Go to review page

5.0

This book should be required reading for all fandom studies scholars, SFF fans, and most importantly SFF writers. The Dark Fantastic by Ebony Elizabeth Thomas excellently explores how Black female characters are presented in The Hunger Games, Merlin, the Vampire Diaries, and Harry Potter to show when these characters fall into the dark fantastic cycle, meaning they are sacrificed, forever the Other, and/or always dying and haunting the narrative. This was a thorough informational and investigative book.

readingintheether's review

Go to review page

4.0

A super interesting and intriguing nonfiction read if you’re interested in reading diverse books, the role race plays in literature (primarily in the function of young adult and children’s books) and the way our racialized society has trained our imaginations. Highly recommend.

i_will_sing_no_requiem's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

callsigncottagecore's review

Go to review page

4.0

The book is dense. It leans heavily academic, but, if you're willing to muddle through the theorizing, and you have an open heart and an open mind, it can change the way you consume fantasy media. Never once have I thought to myself why are there Black witches and wizards with English names in Harry Potter, because rarely do I spare a thought for the fact that millions of Black people call the US home because they were plucked from their homes and relocated as property for someone else. I thought it wasn't polite to think about it, but it created a hole in my ability to critically consume fiction, and probably everything else.

elarsonwhittaker's review

Go to review page

4.0

every sci fi and fantasy lover should read this book. it really made me think about popular culture in a different way.

i found the harry potter chapter a little disappointing and wish that it was a standalone chapter instead of basically being the conclusion, but i really appreciated the author’s own experiences with the harry potter fandom and race bending in fan fiction.

naomileunis's review against another edition

Go to review page

4.0

4,5*

petitpoucetreveur's review

Go to review page

4.0

A thought-provoking essay on the role that racial difference plays in our fantastically storied imaginations, based on an analysis of YA culture through the case of Rue in the Hunger Games, Gwen in the BBC's Merlin, and Bonnie Bennet in The Vampire's Diaires.
My first observation would be that it reads a bit like an academic paper, there are a lot of theoretical references that sometimes felt a bit like name/concept dropping to me, as I didn't know most of them, except Toni Morisson, Todorov and Paul Ricoeur. The writing style can be a bit intimidating (it was for me, especially in the first chapter, which lays the groundwork for the main theories), so I wouldn't necessarily recommend this book to people who are just starting to read essays. But if you're interested in the subject or curious, please dive in! Because it's rooted in popular culture, it gives us something to hold on to, we're not in terra incognita.

Anyway, the dark fantastic. Ebony E. Thomas explores the representation of the "dark other" in fantasy, pointing out a dissonance between the reader and the representation in books. She explains how darkness and monsters are always racialized, and the monster body is a cultural body, a conscience, and a projection. I'm explaining it really badly, I'm sorry. But it leads her to postulate what she calls The Dark Fantastic Cycle which has 5 stages :
1/spectacle 2/hesitation 3/violence 4/haunting 5/emancipation.
Her book is an illustration of this cycle through various characters. Black people seem to be hard to accept in fantasy settings because it jolts the reader back to reality, but more and more people of color are writing themselves into existence through new stories, but also reading themselves into existence through the stories that are already there, reclaiming characters and storylines. The author talks a lot about the role that fanculture plays in enabling but also stopping this representation through online discussion, transformative and counter-storytelling.
The chapters on HG, TVD, and Merlin were the most enlightening for me; I was less convinced by her remarks on HP (which are kind of disturbing to read because they don't acknowledge everything that's problematic in JKR, since they were written before the whole drama made itself known). I found the "hesitation" and "haunting" phases of the Dark Fantastic cycle to be the most eye-opening.

This review is a mess, but if even a small part of it made you curious, my work here is done.

byronic_reader's review

Go to review page

4.0

Dark Fantastic is a very unique read for me. It is not easy to read a book that is as insightful as this one. But after a multiple reading attempts, I finally finished this book and my God, what an experience it is! The language is rich and I really feel like an academic after finishing this. I will update this review after doing a third reading.

ngreader's review

Go to review page

5.0

This is one of those books I want to own so I can read it again and again at my own leisure. Thomas explores the intricacies of Black feminism within fandoms and popular culture; something that is severely lacking within academic study. As someone studying rhetoric in popular culture and someone who wants to read diverse fiction that doesn't enforce stereotypes, this was an amazing book that I believe everyone should read.