Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Bitter by Akwaeke Emezi

35 reviews

armontheroad's review against another edition

dark emotional funny reflective tense fast-paced

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

As someone who fell in love with PET, BITTER immediately went onto my list for the most anticipated 2022 releases!! I was worried going into this because I saw a *lot* of criticism for this book. However, after finishing it, I disagree with a lot of the negative things people have to say about this work. In my opinion, Akwaeke Emezi does not ever disappoint with their novels!! This was not a book that was ‘fun’ to read, by any means, there are some triggering topics discussed within this novel. However, I think the way the conversations are talked about is brilliant and that the book was one that I could not put down! There seem to be some adults who think this book is “too smart” for teenagers and I just don’t think you’re giving teens the credit they deserve. I could talk about BITTER for ages, but to save time and energy I’ll leave this review short.

CWs I can't link below: conversion therapy, depression, sex trafficking, etc.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Self harm, Death of parent, Death, Child abuse, Murder, Police brutality, and Racism

overbooked207's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-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? Yes

5.0

📖 Bitter by Akwaeke Emezi Book Review 📖

1st book of July 2022 and 15th book of the year:

This was such a powerful, fantastic, and relevant book and prequel to one of my all-time favorites, Pet. You don’t have to read Pet in order to understand this book, but I highly recommend doing so anyway because it's also such an amazing and important book. I loved that we got to go back in time to see the events talked about in Pet in this book and follow Bitter’s story this time, and it felt more mature and heavier than Pet. The writing and world-building are always phenomenal in Akwaeke Emezi’s books, and this time was no different. The themes/topics that the book brings up including revolution, healing, generational trauma, mental health, found family/coming together as a community to help each other, using art as activism, the cycle of violence, and more are all super important to talk about nowadays and always, the making it a book that I think absolutely everybody should pick up. The audiobook was also done beautifully, and it felt more mature and heavier than Pet, which was already dealing with very heavy subject matter. I highly recommend reading this and everything by Akwaeke Emezi, and I am absolutely in love with all of their book covers! TW for blood, death, self-harm/cutting, police brutality, racism, homophobia, war, hate crimes, dissociation, panic attacks, gun violence, gore, fire/fire injury, vomit, ableism, injuries/injury description, abuse, abandonment, mention of the death of a parent, mention of rape, medical content/trauma, eye mutilation, body horror, mental illness, child abuse, and grief📚🎨

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Fire/Fire injury, Homophobia, Mass/school shootings, Police brutality, Abandonment, Blood, Body horror, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gore, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Physical abuse, Racism, Grief, Gun violence, Self harm, Vomit, War, Child abuse, Death, Ableism, Rape, and Violence

sadiefc's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror and Blood

Moderate: Police brutality, Drug use, Genocide, Homophobia, Racism, Self harm, Abandonment, Child death, Cursing, Death, Gun violence, Hate crime, and War

karcitis's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Gun violence, Murder, Self harm, Blood, and Violence

Moderate: Child death, Child abuse, Bullying, Police brutality, Domestic abuse, Body horror, Classism, Racism, Fire/Fire injury, Emotional abuse, Ableism, Death of parent, and Physical abuse

Minor: Infidelity, Drug use, Lesbophobia, Homophobia, Kidnapping, and Excrement

halfbloodprincess_hogwarts's review

adventurous dark emotional inspiring sad tense fast-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

4.75

Wow, this is my first time reading Emezi's writing and I found it incredible.

The audi is read by one of my favorite narrators, Bahni Turpin🤍🤍🤍

I did not read the synopsis upon starting and was surprised to learn that the Mc's name is bitter😂😭 poor thing....

I enjoyed this unique piece and that Bitter has the  magical artistic ability to bring her drawings to life, which is AWESOME!!! 

Bitter is a relatable character and genuinely needed to get their frustration out. But there is always a plot twist and sometimes your creation has a mind of its own🔮

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Racism, Blood, Vomit, Death, Grief, Hate crime, Murder, Police brutality, and Violence

emeraldelephant's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality, Racism, Death of parent, Medical content, and Injury/Injury detail

bisexualwentworth's review against another edition

4.0

Glad I picked this one back up when I did!

Bitter is a strange, somewhat biblical, beautiful little book about revolution and the power of art. Unsurprisingly, it was right up my alley. I knew I would enjoy it because I loved Pet and because everything Akwaeke Emezi writes has a little bit of magic in it, but this one really came through. I loved the characters and their relationships and all of the conversations about what it means to be an activist and the different roles that different people play in revolution. All of that was stunning.

The actual depictions of activism were definitely kind of lacking. Why were all of the organizers teenagers? Why weren’t they more informed? My activist organizer friend was very annoyed by this, and now I am also annoyed.

The pacing was also kind of off, especially at the end.

Honestly I enjoyed this book a lot when I first read it, but in retrospect, I want a lot more. Of course the story is focused on Bitter and her personal growth, but after reading Pet, I definitely expected the prequel to show how society actually got to that more utopian state. Instead, all of the changes happen at the very end, very quickly, off-page. And of course change is still a process, but generally I’m not convinced that this book did an amazing job of either portraying activism or setting up the book it’s a prequel for.

I still enjoyed the story and loved the characters, though. I’m especially glad that Bitter had Blessing and Aloe in her life.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Death

Moderate: Racism, Gun violence, Homophobia, Police brutality, and Child abuse

lolajh's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective 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? Yes

5.0

Forever obsessed with Akwaeke’s books and the way they portray racism and police brutality and queerness and love. Reading the prequel to Pet and seeing Jam’s mother Bitter’s teenage experience got me to understand her character and motives in Pet once understanding what she went through as a kid and not wanting that for her daughter. Seeing Bitter’s summoned monster’s horrific character that differed so much to Pet, who acted as more of a parental figure who protected Jam was crazy, and explained why Bitter wanted to get rid of Pet in the sequel. This book was full of the loveable characters featured in Pet, but with their stories properly illustrated and creating a heavily thawed out and well constructed piece of writing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Police brutality, Self harm, Violence, Blood, Body horror, Death, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Injury/Injury detail, and Mental illness

readingwithk's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring fast-paced

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

5.0

Absolutely remarkable book that explores the power of everyone’s voice in a revolution

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Police brutality, and Racism

sarah984's review against another edition

emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

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

4.5

I liked this a lot, but it suffered a bit from inevitably being compared to Pet, which I loved. The writing style in Bitter is a little more grounded, a kind of standard YA writing where the lessons in the text are stated outright. Because this is set in pre (and during) revolution Lucille there are more real-world parallels. Some of these worked for me and some didn't. I liked the characters and the basic outline of the story but things got a bit muddled toward the end for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm

Moderate: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Blood, Body horror, Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, and Police brutality

Minor: Racism, Sexual assault, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Homophobia, Infidelity, Child abuse, Bullying, Cursing, and Death of parent