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A review by flamingtashhh
The Angry Hills by Leon Uris
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I couldn’t add a specific content warning for this, but I feel like an important one would be refugee crises/ exile/ migration.
I bought this book kind of on accident, and didn’t realize it was a World War II novel- not at all my genre, but I’ve loved other works by the author. I actually ended up liking it much more than I expected, but took two stars because of the tragically underdeveloped female characters, who were really just objectified, and the way that the main character never really developed- in fact I think his development was stunted completely by the introduction of love interests.
Otherwise, the novel was a really good, if subtle, representation of the military industrial complex in action, and how colonization through savior-war works. I was really pretty impressed too with the way that the novel resisted and beat back an American narrative of war being heroic and tragic and fraternal- it was an absolute waste, frantic, it felt senseless to the point of almost random. Notably, the Greeks, including the Jewish Greeks, were not aided by any of the war-waging in this novel, which felt accurate.
I bought this book kind of on accident, and didn’t realize it was a World War II novel- not at all my genre, but I’ve loved other works by the author. I actually ended up liking it much more than I expected, but took two stars because of the tragically underdeveloped female characters, who were really just objectified, and the way that the main character never really developed- in fact I think his development was stunted completely by the introduction of love interests.
Otherwise, the novel was a really good, if subtle, representation of the military industrial complex in action, and how colonization through savior-war works. I was really pretty impressed too with the way that the novel resisted and beat back an American narrative of war being heroic and tragic and fraternal- it was an absolute waste, frantic, it felt senseless to the point of almost random. Notably, the Greeks, including the Jewish Greeks, were not aided by any of the war-waging in this novel, which felt accurate.
Content Warnings
Graphic: War, Genocide, Gun violence, Death, Fatphobia, Grief, Murder, Racism, Violence, Alcohol, Antisemitism, Child death, Colonisation, Torture, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Sexual assault, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual violence, and Rape
Minor: Sexual content
The female characters are ridiculously underdeveloped. Like, RIDICULOUSLY underdeveloped.