Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros

27 reviews

ezwolf's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad 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? It's complicated

5.0

The City Beautiful follows Alter, a young Jewish man working to try and bring his mother and sisters to America when his close friend is murdered and Alter is thrown into solving the mystery of who murdered Yakov as well as other Jewish young men. 

One of the things I think this book does so well is mix real historical settings along with Jewish mythology. It also delves into (one of) the ways death is treated in Jewish culture. The antisemitism that Alter experiences and danger of being visibly Jewish is something that can be related to even now.

I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for queer Jewish representation!

Also I greatly appreciate that Aden Polydoros posts content warnings on his website for each of his books. I've copied a link to the ones specifically for this book below. 

https://adenpolydoros.com/the-city-beautiful

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Hate crime, Homophobia, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Antisemitism, Grief, Religious bigotry, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Classism

Moderate: Gun violence, Pedophilia, Rape, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal death, Death of parent, and Alcohol

lanid's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Antisemitism

Minor: Animal death, Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Racism, Rape, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury

moonytoast's review

challenging mysterious medium-paced

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

3.75

This book and Ava Reid’s The Wolf and the Woodsman have really opened my eyes to the existence and beautiful complexity of Jewish fantasy and stories infused with Jewish mythology. In The City Beautiful, Alter Rosen is possessed by the dybbuk of a close friend, who was one of a number of young Jewish boys disappearing or dying under mysterious circumstances under the shadow of the 1892 World’s Fair in Chicago. (It admittedly suffers from one of my bookish pet peeves—first person narration in a historical setting—but I will be forgiving in this case because of how well I enjoyed the story.)

Perfect for fans of Aiden Thomas’ Cemetery Boys and Roshani Chokshi’s The Gilded Wolves, The City Beautiful has proven itself to be a great addition to the budding young adult historical fantasy genre and cemented my interest in Polydoros’ future works. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Hate crime, Violence, Blood, Antisemitism, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Child death, Gun violence, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Grief, and Death of parent

Minor: Homophobia and Injury/Injury detail

leahjanespeare's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

This debut really surprised me! I expected to like it, but I didn’t expect to feel as fully immersed as I did. It is set in Chicago during the Chicago World Fair but not focused on the fair itself for the most part / also around the time of the Cold Storage Fire. Young boys are disappearing and their bodies are showing up around the city—clearly murder is afoot. Alter is a gay, Jewish immigrant from Romania working hard to raise money to bring his mother and sisters over to America. As Alter’s friends start disappearing he gets caught up in the treachery and becomes in danger himself. 

I’ll warn you this book deals with HEAVY topics with mentions of child molestation, rape, and antisemitism and homophobia. But because of this integration of some ‘lost’ topics for the time period (or intentionally buried), I am so glad this book exists. I had no idea of the intense antisemitism of the era especially around immigrants. It’s horrifying and needs to be examined more, acknowledged - especially in this setting. There are so many books on the Chicago World Fair and the city in general at that time that focus on famous murders but (in my reading experience) have failed to integrate a lot of what marginalized people had to deal with at the same time.

I’m neither gay nor Jewish but my impression, as an outsider reading about these identities, is that they have been portrayed very well, based on the author’s own identity/history/research.

Really looking forward to more from this author.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Violence, and Antisemitism

Moderate: Gore and Xenophobia

Minor: Sexual violence

rowanbg's review

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

I read this book pretty much in one sitting, and I'm so glad I did. It is always interesting to see historical fiction that focuses of times, places, and people who have been overlooked, and Polydoros sets the scene in such a rich and detailed way. Not to mention the inclusion of the dybbuk, which I have never seen in a novel before, and which brings this beyond a regular ghost story.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Vomit, Antisemitism, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Rape and Sexual assault

Minor: Homophobia

caidyn's review

dark emotional medium-paced

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

3.0

At some points I really enjoyed this book. At others, it was kinda meh. But I did like it and I'm glad it's out there! We need more Jewish books that aren't about the Holocaust. There are other interesting times in Jewish history.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Hate crime, Homophobia, Antisemitism, Grief, Murder, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Sexual assault

emilyeehaw's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious

• Loveable characters? Yes

3.5

i am really in my fantasy era right now, what can i say! this book was good. i liked that it focused so much on Jewish culture and how antisemitism affected alter and his family and friends. it's not often that a historical book centers Jewish characters without being about the holocaust, so i appreciated this book providing a new narrative.

i think one area that was lacking was the development of yakov prior to his murder. i would have liked more scenes between him and alter to depict their friendship, making his fate more tragic. he seemed like a two-dimensional character, even when his backstory was fully revealed. i thought it was interesting how there was the mystery of who killed yakov as well as some shady shit happening from other characters, specifically mr. katz. glad that POS died! that was karmic justice babes.

on the flipside, i enjoyed frankie as a character A LOT. i loved his history with alter and how much he was willing to be by his side when shit went down. alter was also a very lovable character and he was really put through the ringer in this book...but often in an angsty, entertaining way. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism and Murder

Moderate: Homophobia and Pedophilia

kirani's review

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I don’t even know where to start on this review because this book is EVERYTHING! It’s beautifully written, it kept me on the edge of my seat, it made me laugh, it made me cry. It’s queer, it’s Jewish, it’s fantasy, it’s historical, and it’s in Chicago! I really don’t know how to explain it but I *saw* myself in the characters and I love when I can connect to characters, so I was immediately hooked. Also I will think about

“I love you!” “I love you, too, that’s why I have to let you go.”

for the rest of my life. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Blood, Antisemitism, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Gore, Homophobia, Misogyny, and Vomit

Minor: Pedophilia

The racial slurs tag is for antisemitic slurs. There is also a fair bit of internalized homophobia.

ashleycmms's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative lighthearted sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Drug use, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual violence, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

clovelatte's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful 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

5.0

Damn. This book dealt with so much pain and violence but the characters are wonderful and I was tense the entire time hoping they would make it through. You absolutely MUST check the content warnings. Things are rough. But also so good. Love these boys. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Child death, Death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Blood, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Medical content, Mass/school shootings, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail