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dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Appropriation, Epistemicide. Re-writing of Indigenous history. Christian propaganda. Disgusting novel!
Content Warnings
Review of Brida by Paulo Coelho.
By Kundan Chhabra
Tldr: this is waste of 6 hours of your precious life and valuable time, especially if you are on a journey of actively decolonizing from Abrahamic Supremacy. It's a book full of cultural Appropriation and Epistemicide of multiple cultures + crap full of Abrahamic Supremacist propaganda, misinformation and manipulation.
Here's my review proper. I am writing most of this review in the following format: simply giving you a list of who it's for and who it's not for.
WHO IT'S FOR:
1. For New Age Christians who still want to be Christian but in a new bottle that gives them absolution from Christian guilt-tripping and also guilt for all the harm caused by Christianity but don't want to actually give up Christian Supremacy.
2. Imperialists who love to appropriate multiple cultures and commit Epistemicide.
3. Naive people who buy into the Abrahamic Supremacist New Age propaganda about "twin flames", "soulmates", etc.
4. Unethical people who enjoy the erasure of Global Indigenous People and revisionist history that harms the most marginalized people on Earth.
Who It's Not for:
1. Ethical people who are actively decolonizing from both Imperialism and Abrahamic Supremacy.
2. People who would rather read nuanced stories rather than easy stories that erase entire cultures and completely rewrites their history, replacing them with overly simplistic false propaganda.
Example of revisionist history in the book: when he says that Tarot was turned into a game because the Christianized "god" wanted to make it easy to learn.
Not only does the book erase Romani culture by turning one of their core practices into a mere plot device, but this line in the book is false revisionist history that contributes to their continued oppression today. For example, Italy and the Czech Republic are still kidnapping Romani children including even newborn babies away from their mothers and trafficking them into Christian foster homes. Yes I use that language on purpose because it's indeed essentially legal state-sanctioned kidnapping and trafficking.
And no, the Romani people turned Tarot into a game to hide from constant oppression, ok? "God" didn't do it. Romani people did it. Enough with the Epistemicide!
But even as a story in its own right, it's boring and unoriginal. Just a waste of 6 hours of my life! 🤢