Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Дівчина, жінка, інакша by Bernardine Evaristo

346 reviews

secre's review against another edition

informative reflective 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

2.5

Part of my mediocre rating for this is down to the formatting and style, and I fully recognise that may be a me problem. Hence why it's a three star rating and not any lower, because the bones behind the stylistic choices are good. I just struggled to engage with them as well I perhaps could have.

My main issue is the narrative structure, where the over-arching narrative is told through a series of shorts, skipping between characters and almost always introducing new characters, many of whom have tenuous links to previously referenced ones. They weren't necessarily chronological, so you'd have to place yourself in time as well as place. Every single skip, I had to force myself to mind plot who this person was in relation to everyone else - or at least somebody else. Every single skip, I had to re-orientate myself and that was exhausting to read. There were so many characters and many of them introduced by different names depending on who was talking that keeping the mental mind map made it a tedious exercise. My second issue was the formatting choice. Almost like poetry, but not poetry. Lines of text with no capitalisation or punctuation. Maybe I'm just a conservative reader, but I struggled to engage.

Each of the twelve chapters takes on a different perspective, all showing a variety of women, mostly black and British but from a variety of backgrounds, as they find their place in the world. There's a complete range of characters here and I did find that Evaristo captured the different voices well. There were some odd choices like a mother wanting to caress her daughter's partners balls almost the first time she meets him, but I suppose there's all sorts out there. Evaristo captures different time periods and scenes; from the elderly farming couple to the distinctly promiscuous lesbian scene. The links between characters can be overt or tenuous, which can make it difficult to track where the link is though.

It's got good bones to it, but the use of so many inter-linked characters let it down for me. It would have been better had Evaristo focussed more closely on three or four of the characters, using the others within their chapters rather than set on their own. It needed more meat on the bones to really work for me and it couldn't do that when it was skipping between so many different elements, particularly when some of them were so loosely connected. There were some characters I actively connected with, others I didn't and others I found myself mildly grossed out by; I'll reference back to the balls reference earlier. All in all, an interesting piece, but not one for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Rape

ellxnmcgrxth's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

Read in one night, it's very moreish

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Racism, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Slavery, Alcohol, Grief, Infidelity, Addiction, Child abuse, Classism, Colonisation, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Body horror, Emotional abuse, Murder, Alcoholism, Lesbophobia, Miscarriage, Eating disorder, Hate crime, Mental illness, Rape, Suicide attempt, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Racial slurs, and Suicide

bites_of_books's review against another edition

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

5.0

I loved this book. I thoroughly enjoy a book when it makes me think and pushes me to put it all together. Here we follow the stories of multiple Black women living in the UK, some from birth to their later years. It is told in a very peculiar style, which for me called back the way we remember stories from long ago and/or the way we recall our own memories, with only certain parts standing out in our memory while others are very vague. 

This book is full of really difficult topics, from abuse, abandonment, racism, bigotry, etc., and it is also full of a lot of heart and love between women. I loved the inclusion of trans and lesbian characters since they were the main characters in their respective stories. 

I'd recommend this book if you like multigenerational stories, books where you have to do the work and piece the story together, and if you like diverse books full of conversations surrounding various aspects of feminism. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Grief, Infidelity, Lesbophobia, Physical abuse, Bullying, Body shaming, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Child death, Deadnaming, Homophobia, Infertility, Miscarriage, Rape, Sexual assault, Abandonment, Pregnancy, Sexism, Sexual harassment, Gaslighting, Child abuse, Racism, and Toxic relationship

emilia___'s review against another edition

adventurous hopeful inspiring sad fast-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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs

Moderate: Sexual assault, Racism, and Miscarriage

Minor: Misogyny

lenerisreading's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring reflective 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Racism, and Sexual harassment

aulman2's review against another edition

emotional 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, War, Sexual violence, Rape, Sexual harassment, Sexism, and Racism

coco43cl's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring sad 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Racial slurs, Transphobia, Rape, Child death, Lesbophobia, Racism, Domestic abuse, and Homophobia

ynaiita_5896's review against another edition

emotional funny informative inspiring lighthearted reflective fast-paced

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

5.0

Evaristo takes 12 characters whose lives intertwine in some way or another and writes a book that is so unified, continued and connected. This book is so well written and the characters are so realistic that I wondered which part of them was real and which part fiction. The characters are lovable and those who have called them unlovable may have done so because they see themselves in these characters across all the emotions they have depicted.

Informative and reflective. This book has taught me so much about women and how resilient we are; how tragic our lives have been and continue to be but how we continue to rise each time. It is a reminder of how society has tried to define us for centuries, across generations and geographies, and how hard we try and succeed to take charge of the narrative.

What I love most about it is how diverse it is within the diversities. This isn't specific to cultural, but spans across the LGBTQ+ discourse. These conversations are so important and there's a lot of learning that is still needed. There's a lot of cancel culture happening due to lack of knowledge and this book has the pote tial and opportunity to fill the gap.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism, Miscarriage, Rape, Racial slurs, Sexual assault, Slavery, Domestic abuse, Infertility, and Mental illness

brittcoxon's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective 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? Yes

5.0

Wow. A book that gives you a glimpse into so many lives. A unique look at the intersection of being LGBTQ and black. A complex set of stories, all interconnected, visiting friends and family, current times and historical. Some characters stories are harder to read than others, this book deals with some very difficult topics, ones that are sadly very familiar.
By the end of the book I felt I knew all our characters so well, their lives, influences and ambitions.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Misogyny, Pregnancy, Drug use, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Child death, Grief, Miscarriage, Death, Racism, Physical abuse, Lesbophobia, Mental illness, Suicide attempt, Domestic abuse, Sexual harassment, Transphobia, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, and Death of parent

siebensommer's review against another edition

reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

she’s mum’s emotional caretaker - always has been, always will be. it’s the burden of being an only child, especially a girl, who will naturally be more caring. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Transphobia, Drug use, and Racism