Reviews with content warning for Genocide - Cloud Atlas

Reviews tagging 'Genocide'

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

11 reviews

asolis's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated

3.0

Little library find. Six stories nested within each other - you pass halfway through each until you reach the center and work your way back through each second half in reverse order. While the stories are clearly linked together, I expected a stronger connection to reveal itself over time.

I admit most of them took a minute to get into and I almost quit the whole book about 5 pages in. But once you get the hang of each story's dialect it draws you in hard.

A lot of racism and I often wondered whether it was for effect, "historical accuracy," or why it was necessary. But ultimately it contributes to the overall track towards anticapitalism and environmentalism, a warning against white supremacy and the havoc it has and will wreak upon our planet and its people.

I was pleased to benefit from my recent reading of Brave New World and 1984, which are especially referenced in the 5th story.

Content Warnings

lanid's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging reflective tense

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

Content Warnings

marissasa's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.5

Cloud Atlas is a long, sweeping narrative with each chapter about a different person who is a reincarnation of the previous chapter's main character and the ways they are all interconnected despite existing in different eras experiencing wildly different situations. The theory was very cool to me and I was intrigued by the way that the book doesn't spell out any of the world-building sci-fi elements clearly, leaving the whole reincarnation idea up to interpretation for the most part. However, out of the 6 main characters, 4 were white men whose stories really paled in comparison to the 2 women's chapters. Luisa and especially Sonmi-451 carried this book in my opinion. While their chapters were engaging, action-packed, and full of social commentary, I felt the other chapters dragged on and were far less memorable. I even felt like the first character we were introduced to was by far the least interesting, which made it tough to read since his chapters were the very first one and the last one. Although I liked the premise I just wanted more in the execution from this book.

Content Warnings

katepowellshine's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.5

The book is clearly an impressive literary accomplishment, with the various voices and eras woven together, but it's far too cynical for my tastes. There's enough of that in the real world.

Content Warnings

frogggirl2's review

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

This reads like a series of loosely connected short stories and, like any short story collection, some pieces are better than others. It feels quite disjointed at first but as you go along the connections become more and more apparent.

The writing is great. There's a lot of substance here, but, for me there's just too much content. This point has been made more clearly in other works. The waters here just get too muddied - there's just too many plots to effectively convey the thesis.

**Also, a lot of racism, indicative of the period and disavowed by the book, but unpleasant.

Content Warnings