A review by opaloctopus
The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson

dark sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

I don't know why this book is so popular, but it is. It seems to revel in the trauma and oppression that it ostensibly opposes and a lot of it reads like trauma/torture porn. The themes it covers (homophobia is bad, colonialism is bad, it's impossible to destroy a system from the inside without letting it take over a part of you) can easily be covered without being so gratuitous. Mean Girls, for example, takes on the last theme beautifully without seeming to revel in the murder and mutilation of gay people. The fact that these tortures only really happen to marginalized people make them seem more voyeuristic than empathetic. Hard no from me. 
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