Reviews with content warning for Child death - Beloved

Reviews tagging 'Child death'

emilyreads15's review

challenging 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

2.0

Had to read this book for AP Lit and let’s just say it was certainly something. For starters I didn’t like the author’s writing style at all. It was unique but confusing, had it been written a different way I think I would’ve understood more. I wouldn’t necessarily say that it was difficult to understand this book’s plot, that was pretty simple once discussed and thought over more. The real difficulty lies within the overall meaning and purpose, if someone asked me right now why the author wrote this I wouldn’t have an answer because I truly have no clue. I suppose I would say that she wrote it so that people who read it would have a better understanding of the horrors of slavery and the sacrifices those impacted had to make to survive. But even I’m not totally sure of that.

I think I would’ve liked this a lot more had she not included Magical Realism. That’s the part that really got me confused the most when it came to understanding the overall meaning. I wish it would’ve been left to realism without the magic (ghosts, afterlife, etc). Like I just truly don’t rlly get it. I also wish there would have been more defined answers throughout the book but I suppose I understand why the author didn’t include that.

This is one of those books that you could talk for hours about what it means and never truly know. The unfortunate thing is other than the historical aspects, I didn’t enjoy reading this at all. I feel asleep multiple times while reading, nothing ever really kept me engaged. I didn’t like the story and I didn’t really like the plot (whatever that was meant to be). It just felt really dragged out.

This novel did discuss many interesting and less talked about aspects of slavery (some of which were quite disturbing and made me want to puke. I’m shocked they are allowed to teach this at my school). Anyways I would recommend it for that as it was educational and eye-opening. But overall I just didn’t enjoy this book at all.

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ssummar's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

4.75

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jeggert10's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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_sam_m's review

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emotional sad medium-paced

5.0

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niamaybereading's review

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dark emotional reflective sad tense 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? It's complicated

4.5

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kristinebraley's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense 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

4.5

This book was beautifully written and narrated by the author. The story was brutal and difficult and that was part of the beauty, especially following the story arc of the character called Denver. There were many lovable characters, hate-able as well. The magical realism was masterfully written. I will most likely have to read this with my own eyes in order to grasp a few of the more esoteric scenes.

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