Reviews tagging 'Xenophobia'

The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara

15 reviews

rexpostfacto's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark reflective sad tense slow-paced

5.0

If ever a content warning was needed for a book, it's this one. Beautiful writing paired with a haunting and vile faux memoir tragically based on some true events. 

The epilogue and post script literally had me holding back gags and left me feeling nauseated. 

I highly recommend the audiobook; being able to really hear Ronald's notes and emphasis on things makes all the difference imo.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Confinement, Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Xenophobia, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Colonisation, Child abuse, Racism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Dementia, Death, Cultural appropriation, and Rape

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Sexism, Suicide, and Medical content

partybonus's review

challenging sad 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

I do notttt recommend! It is a trigger warning minefield and full of really wretched moments. The lush rainforest backdrop and descriptions of the scenery belong in a travel guide which is what I think this writer was before they became a writer. I wish I hadn’t read it. It haunted me and I am not interested in shockingly violent and horrendous situations in books anymore, especially when there is zero reason for it. Stay away! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Classism, Toxic relationship, Medical trauma, Pedophilia, Rape, Trafficking, Animal death, Colonisation, Incest, Body horror, Child abuse, Sexual assault, Animal cruelty, Sexual violence, Slavery, and Xenophobia

mtmarriott's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.5

Not quite as emotionally impactful as A Little Life but still a deeply interesting take on colonialism, science and cancel culture (before cancel culture was really a pop culture term), it reminded me of a hybrid of TÁR and The Lost City of Z. Usually these stories revolve around media personalities or artists so having the main character be not only a scientist but one who has discovered a truly Earth-shattering thing as the secret to immortality is really fascinating. It also gives Norton’s rise and fall a semi-Faustian quality, turning his greatest achievement into something that imprisons him literally and spiritually. Hanya Yanagihara writes first person narratives quite unlike anyone else I’ve read, she’s about to convey the most disturbed and chilling mindsets with such simplicity and ease that you perfectly understand her character’s beliefs even if they are deeply warped. I’d recommend The Genius and The Boys (a documentary about Daniel Carleton Gadjusek who inspired the Norton Perina character) to anyone who has read this or wants to read it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia and Child abuse

arifairy's review against another edition

challenging dark tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicide, Sexual violence, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Physical abuse, and Colonisation

Minor: Xenophobia

vireojay's review

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

this book is deeply disturbing in many creative ways, but also ways that are all too familiar when dealing with colonially-minded white men. it’s rare that a book makes me physically cringe and shudder, but this one did several times. it was certainly original. it could be a little boring and repetitive at times, but still intriguing.

i wouldn’t say i enjoyed this book, but it is so disturbingly stark and honest in its abhorrence that you can’t help but keep reading. it was like seeing a horrible car crash that just keeps getting worse and being unable to look away until the final car has flipped over and the last person has been thrown from their seat into the road. it deals with several destructive ideologies that are all too relevant at present. the parallels to current events and the desolation of Indigenous cultures and lands was eerie and devastating.

it can be enjoyable or at least interesting to read a book where the protagonist is an awful person. sometimes there is enough nuance, enough charming qualities and character development, that it feels satisfying. however this narrator is just so terrible and is mostly oblivious to it. the few times he attempts to take responsibility or show remorse are ultimately abandoned as a result of his inherent selfishness. through the whole book you hope to understand the motivations of the narrator, you hope he will learn from his mistakes and he fails time and again. you’re also waiting for a “big reveal” of how the narrator ended up where he is now and i don’t know how else to put it, but it is more fucked up than you’re expecting. 

i never really write book reviews, so obviously this book struck a chord with me and gave me a lot to think about. to be clear, this review is not a criticism of the book as a whole. it is well-written, convincing and creative. it accomplishes what i believe the author set out to do, which is to make you feel big, uncomfortable emotions. also to write about very real things, that continue to happen to Indigenous people, in a way that blatantly highlights how absurdly cruel it all is. overall not a bad book, but very heavy 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Animal cruelty, Death, Mental illness, Ableism, Racism, Rape, Violence, Xenophobia, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Grief, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Suicide

kvdb's review

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Rape, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Slavery, Colonisation, Cultural appropriation, Sexual assault, Xenophobia, Incest, Misogyny, Sexual violence, and Emotional abuse

alimalina's review

slow-paced

0.5

while the concept quite interesting, the execution leaves a sticky feeling of dissapointment with author for wasting so much time writing and with myself for reading and endulging the text in the potential of a good story that never came. in its attempt to be like nabokov, yanagihara reads more like rand, boring, bloated and mediocre. if only she commited to the premise of pale fire fully, creating discourse inside the text or something to lessen the annoying-ness of the main narrator. it feels hollow and only works when you are giving the benefit of the doubt to the narrator or simply enjoy the prose, both of which were an impossable task of me to ask. 
there could have been interesting points to make about discoveries made violently, the whole means justifying the ends conversation, if the discovery made was in any way meaningful or valuable to society at large, but it isnt really. this novel could have been a postcolonial study subject but the case it makes is too vague and while a desperate student could make a point of the novel mirroring robinson cruso and critiqueing the legacy it created or the concept of the subaltern and its inablity to speak, i have passed my postcolonial ecocriticism class. 
the novel simply feels like a vapid postcolonial trauma porn, intellectually veiled splatterpunk in a way it treats the thing it reveals for its shock value and as affectual object to be fetishised. 2/10 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Child abuse, Xenophobia, Colonisation, and Rape

orlagal's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Animal death, Genocide, Gore, Physical abuse, Body shaming, Child abuse, Colonisation, Cultural appropriation, Forced institutionalization, Kidnapping, Medical content, Misogyny, Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Emotional abuse, Incest, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Sexual violence, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Death, Excrement, Fatphobia, Suicide, Death of parent, Grief, Sexual harassment, Suicide attempt, Domestic abuse, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Trafficking, Gaslighting, Violence, Vomit, and Xenophobia

hanstin's review

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia, Pedophilia, Rape, Trafficking, Suicide, Sexual harassment, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Toxic relationship, Sexual violence, Animal death, Child abuse, Torture, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Misogyny, Sexism, Racism, and Colonisation

katjalainen's review

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective slow-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

5.0

This book took me to a universe so well made that I'll have a hard time remembering that these things did not happen even though they are so fanciful. It's not just due to the brilliant narrative structure of the book, it's also because these things do happen all the time. The resource curse. The white saviour complex. The "there is no price too great to pay for science" mentality. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Child abuse, and Xenophobia