Reviews tagging 'Hate crime'

The Dinner by Herman Koch

17 reviews

clemrain's review against another edition

Go to review page

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

4.5

Where do you begin with The Dinner? I suppose it would be with the dinner.

This book takes course through one dinner. An important dinner and discussion between difficult characters that are strong in their beliefs and will act on them. That is a threat. 

The narrator, Paul, is astonishingly written. A wild ride of inner dialogues and anecdotes that are placed in just the right places. Koch uses great pacing and placements of Paul’s recounts. Paul is of the best unreliable narrator’s I’ve read. 

The Dinner is such a real depiction of racism, prejudice and privilege. That doesn’t catch on until it does and then it just settles. I can’t explain it. Koch does such a good job. You really get put into the disillusionment of these people. It’s astonishing. These are some well written and realistic characters though majority of them, I really don't like.

I wish I could read this book in its original language. I wonder how much it would’ve differed. The pacing the wording. Either way, I do think this translation is effective.

The ending
is five stars to me. Of course it ended like that. There is no consequence for people like Paul. It was realistic. Though I wonder a lot what “disease” Paul left unmentioned. I wonder our conclusions as readers are meant to be us facing our own prejudice.


This book is frustrating and for most of it I was just trying to understand what the point was. But there is a point and I wonder if it’ll ever be understood by the people this book is about. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

hannibanani29's review

Go to review page

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

3.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

hollymich's review against another edition

Go to review page

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

2.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

hoax_meal's review against another edition

Go to review page

medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
do yourself a favor and skip this one. I've read 4 books this year and this is the worst so far. awful characters, racism, absolutely no substance. you would get more out of a peanuts comic strip than this joke of a book. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

smac11299's review against another edition

Go to review page

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

3.5


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

nqehoward's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.75

wayyyyy too dark and violent and weird

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

varielble's review against another edition

Go to review page

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

3.0

It's fine, a good quick read. I like unreliable narrators and shithead characters from time to time.

I cannot get over the fact that the author thinks that you can detect anti-social personality disorder (or whatever) from an amniocentesis screening. Sir, that is a fetus. You can't even do ableism right.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
More...