Reviews tagging 'Blood'

Real Life by Brandon Taylor

21 reviews

marjoleinvanderspoel's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Absolute new fave. I'm here for societal critque and especially if it includes acedemia. And what a painful but beautiful book this was. Filled with rage, hurt, fear and indecision, it's nuanced and unapologetic and real. Immediately adding Taylor's other work to my tbr.

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raelin's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Things I Loved
  • The lab setting and descriptions and inclusions of high science. I have never read a book that casually includes the graduate setting of a science lab and I loved that backdrop of order and focus admits the emotional chaos and intensity  surrounding Wallace. 
  • The sharing of a painful insight into what it is like to be the “other” in academia at a PWI. 
  • The beautiful prose and achingly tragic descriptions. 
Overall this was just a gut wrenching, rip your heart out and cry for Wallace. I was depressed and deeply sad the whole time reading it. It felt open and important to read, but painful. 

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nickoliver's review against another edition

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

4.5

After reading "Slay" by Brittney Morris, I was still extremely in the mood for a book written by a Black author. I wasn't quite picky about the genre or the age group, so I just picked the one I had the most interest in. Which happened to be this one.

I am not entirely sure what to think of it. I had no idea what to expect from it, because going into it, the only thing I knew was that the main character was a queer Black guy. I did read the synopsis before starting it, but even then, it didn’t tell me all too much, except that the main character had a friend group were some guys were straight, some guys were gay, and some guys were presumably straight but not really. And not knowing what exactly was coming my way definitely made me a bit nervous.

The entire book was only set over a weekend. It didn't let you forget that, but it still sometimes didn’t feel like that, because so much stuff happened (while at the same time, nothing at all). It started out on Friday, when Wallace, the main character, met his friends in a park (I think?), and ended on Sunday, or possibly Monday. At the beginning of the book, Wallace started hooking up with one of his presumably straight friends, Miller. Their relationship wasn’t the main plot, but it was pretty central.

What I didn’t expect was how relatable everything was going to be. A lot of the things Wallace said or thought were things that could’ve come from my mind, which made the book a lot more personal than I had anticipated. The book made me emotional and also kind of uncomfortable, because it made me confront certain things I wasn’t ready to confront (a lot of things about my life, especially my line of work).

The funny thing about the relatability was that it made me kind of give Wallace my own personality, so every time he acted in a way I didn’t expect, I was the Pikachu meme. It did made it a bit hard sometimes because I got infuriated with Wallace - for example, when he was a bit of a jerk, or when he didn’t defend himself -, but the latter made sense if I switched my privilege off for a second, and the former was probably my own fault for assuming I knew his entire personality after a short amount of pages.

I was reminded again that sometimes, looking up trigger warnings beforehand would do me good. Because just like in "Ninth House" by Leigh Bardugo last year, I got blindsided again by a child being sexually abused. And it was pretty fucked up. It went into detail and also insinuated that the parents were kind of okay with that or at least expected it? There was also religious trauma, because his parents were the religious, bigoted type (and overall abusive as all hell). And Taylor showed how it messed Wallace up; how he seemed to have gotten used to sex hurting and being used for pleasure. It hurt to read that.

I really liked the way Taylor talked about Wallace’s Blackness and the way it made people treat him differently at work (and generally). For example, the way he had to work twice as hard to get even half the recognition his white colleagues got, and the way he had to deal with slurs and mistreatment without anyone sticking up for him. That’s what got to me the most: that no one ever defended him. For example, at certain times, one of his friends would be really mad at him for something and chew him out over it, even if it was completely inappropriate and they were in the wrong, and no one would stand up for him? Sometimes, they’d come up to him later and apologise for not saying anything earlier, but honestly, that just made them shittier people. If you don’t speak up when something hateful is being said or done, you’re part of the problem. Reading this story made me feel angry a lot, especially in a numb, powerless kind of way, but that felt deliberate.

While I was sometimes angry at Wallace for not defending himself, I did understand why he didn’t. It was easy for me to be frustrated, because I was never in that situation. I never had someone see me as inferior solely because of my skin colour, so I had to acknowledge my privilege there. In any way, it made sense that Wallace was too tired to keep defending himself, because it either never led anywhere anyways, or it made things even worse for him. So he just let people treat him like shit, because he couldn’t imagine an alternative where he could’ve successfully stood up for himself. I got infuriated a lot, and honestly, all I wanted to do was give Wallace a hug and take a piece of the burden off his shoulders.

I was a huge fan of the Taylor’s writing. I have no idea why, exactly - I can’t pinpoint it -, but it scratched an itch for me in a way that was extremely satisfying. I’d definitely read something else by Taylor for that alone.

The only thing I didn’t particularly like was the ending. It was very open-ended and didn’t really wrap up any of the plot points. In a way it made sense, because the story read more like a “slice of life” story than anything else, and again, it was only set over a weekend. But I still would’ve liked to see at least some of the threads wrapped up. This way, it was a bit too unsatisfying to me. 

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tesshersh's review against another edition

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

4.25

it’s like nothing happens and also so much happens I feel crazy!!!!! heartbreaking

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noahee's review against another edition

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challenging emotional sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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shreyshrey's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.75

Nails a really specific feeling

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yavin_iv's review

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

3.5


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peachani's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0


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oliverlang's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • 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

I'm not sure what I expected from this book to begin with but as it went on I found myself compelled to read more in the hopes that the resolutions I wanted from it would come to fruition.

There's a lot of friend group drama going on throughout this book with a lot of dark/serious themes. 

I feel like I wanted this book to be more than it was. It had the opportunity to provide strong character development and show a bisexual identity and it just didn't give me that. 

Although the book only documents the events over one weekend, the ending felt unfinished and the final chapter came out of the blue with a flash back to the friends meeting for the first time.

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ohlhauc's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
This is a book that you need to be in the right mind for because it will make your body clench and blood boil. It is a graphic, dark, and infuriating read not because of the writing but because of the situations the narrator finds himself in, especially as reflect real life (apt title, then).

Real Life follows a long weekend of a black, gay man -- Wallace -- at a Midwestern University as he struggles to find his place amidst a gruelling grad program and a group of friends and colleagues who hurl micro- and macro-aggressions through slurs, complicit silence, and more. It also explores his toxic relationship that descends into violence with a perceived frenemy.

The author's writing and pacing makes the scenes, especially the graphic moments, feel visceral and as if you're a fly on the wall watching hell open up. And despite there being a handful of characters, you feel as if you get to know each one on a personal level, and can relate to knowing someone like them in your own life. 

One thing that took away from the novel for me was the extremely detailed description of the scenery and environment. If you're into vivid writing about the place the novel is in, this might not be a deal breaker, but I do prefer less detail. In particular, the description of place broke my focus in the story such as when comments about fowl and the lakeshore was inserted in an emotional, vulnerable conversation between two characters. I wanted to focus on the dialogue not on a heron eating a cricket. The specific explanations of scientific processes and equipment also didn't hook me but if you're a graduate student or into campus novels, again, you might enjoy this level of detail.

Overall, this was a powerful debut that will make you think, both mentally and physically. Highly recommended if you are able to handle graphic descriptions of what's mentioned in the content triggers, especially sexual violence.

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