Reviews tagging 'Ableism'

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

24 reviews

ak9's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

Brutal and disgusting but beautiful and poignant 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Colonisation, Death, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Blood, Murder, Rape, Religious bigotry, Slavery, Torture, Trafficking, Violence, Vomit, Classism, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Pedophilia, Sexism, Adult/minor relationship, Ableism, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Mental illness, Misogyny, Abandonment, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Cursing, Hate crime, Kidnapping, Medical content, Medical trauma, War, and Xenophobia

luis0n7i's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective tense slow-paced

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

5.0

Although this is one of the best books I have ever read by far, I would only recommend it to a few people. The prose is jarring at first and if you know anything about this book, you know the amount of explicit and terrible violence that happens within. Despite this, it is still some of the most incredible, impressive and even beautiful prose I have read in my entire life.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Racism, Mass/school shootings, Mental illness, Murder, Physical abuse, Trafficking, Xenophobia, Torture, Violence, Ableism, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Injury/Injury detail, War, Sexism, Sexual violence, Body horror, Cannibalism, Colonisation, Cursing, Death, Animal death, Blood, Child death, Gun violence, Bullying, Child abuse, Death of parent, Dementia, Racial slurs, Sexual assault, Slavery, Rape, and Genocide

mmcloe's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I first read Blood Meridian when I was just coming into my political consciousness at the end of high school. It's staggering to reread it many years later with a more advanced understanding of American history and ideology. Enough has already been said about this to fill a million books but I'll remark that the most fascinating new revelation for me is that the violence of colonialism isn't just physical violence but also anthropological violence. In western understandings of academics and scholarship, we cannot preserve without also destroying, claiming the cultural heritage for our own and leaving only scraps of art and nature and life for anyone else to cling on. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, War, Ableism, Animal death, Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Alcohol, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Pedophilia, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Sexual assault, Rape, Racism, Colonisation, Adult/minor relationship, Hate crime, Slavery, Animal cruelty, Death, Genocide, Gore, Torture, and Violence

namizaela's review against another edition

challenging dark tense slow-paced

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

2.0

"The way of the world is to bloom and to flower and die but in the affairs of men there is no waning and the noon of his expression signals the onset of night. His spirit is exhausted at the peak of its achievement. His meridian is at once his darkening and the evening of his day."

Granted, I didn't know much going into this book, but I feel like no one talks about how incredibly racist it is? McCarthy writes as if he's getting paid $50 for every slur he uses. In addition, he treats Native Americans and Black people as nothing more than cannon fodder to show how violent the white protagonists are.
Apart from the appalling racism, the plot is basically nonexistent, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but made reading this book confusing. I honestly didn't know what was going on half of the time. I didn't even remember any characters besides the kid, the fool, and the judge.
The saving graces of this book are the prose and the character of the judge, both of which chilled me. However, these merits don't make up for the glaring flaws. I'm disappointed, because The Road was my favorite book of 2020. It looks like Blood Meridian might be my least favorite book of 2021.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Excrement, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Medical content, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, and Violence

Moderate: Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence