Reviews tagging 'Racism'

The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe by Edgar Allan Poe

5 reviews

katie0528's review against another edition

This boom was big and pretty unwieldy. I thought I wanted to dive into all of Poe's writings, only to find that once I set out, it was too much. I've had it checked out from the library for months, so I've finally decided to just read the most famous works and return it. A smaller collection is probably enough for all but the Poe diehards.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Racism and Racial slurs

Minor: Blood, Terminal illness, and Slavery

bearystarry's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad slow-paced

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

2.5

Obviously kind of difficult to truly rate a book containing a person’s entire body of work but I had a mostly middling experience overall so that’s what it gets.

Basically a lot of beautiful, moody writing interjected with some very intense moments of hideous racism.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Blood, Death, Racism, Ableism, Alcohol, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Xenophobia, Mental illness, Animal death, Racial slurs, Terminal illness, Antisemitism, Body shaming, Grief, Violence, Slavery, Gore, Religious bigotry, Animal cruelty, Torture, Chronic illness, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Body shaming, Cannibalism, Religious bigotry, Drug use, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Colonisation, Forced institutionalization, and Domestic abuse

hazel_heart's review against another edition

dark relaxing slow-paced

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

4.0

I don't think Poe needs my puny review but I'll say that this collection helped me understand that I suck at reading poems. When I listen to other people read his poems, they're awesome. When I read them myself, they sound like out of rhythm pop songs, even The Raven, lol.

I reduced a point because his Satire/Humor stories are, understandably, aged very poorly (Humor is a dairy product). If you can laugh at them, you're legally allowed to claim you were born in the wrong period of time.

I was going to reduce more points because Poe loves rambling about the most mundane things. If that's how people talked in the 1800s, I don't know how they could get anything done, small talks could take hours! But The Raven was so good, I just couldn't bring myself to give this book 3 stars.

And I knew there'd be racism and I've read Lovecraft so I was prepared for it. But his (only) novel still got me pretty annoyed with the racism and "oh we're so white and better than everyone" themes. And it kinda sucks.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs and Racism

Minor: Misogyny

giuliaicaro's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Antisemitism and Racism

astrangegirlsmind's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious sad tense slow-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism and Racial slurs