Reviews tagging 'Chronic illness'

Goliath by Tochi Onyebuchi

5 reviews

fenouil's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.75

woahhhh, I like the writing, the concept of the book is inriguing, the reflections made can be applied elsewhere

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Racism, and Blood

Moderate: Drug abuse, Racial slurs, Alcohol, Grief, Police brutality, Classism, Fire/Fire injury, Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cancer, Chronic illness, Drug use, Genocide, and Gun violence

schnaucl's review

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.0

I really wanted to like this book more than I did.  Instead, I struggled with it to the point that it took almost two months to read, and it's not that long.   Part of it is just the physical structure of the book. There are four sections, one for each season, but no chapter breaks so it was sometimes difficult to find a natural stopping point.

I can't decide if it's not for me (in the sense that I'm not the intended audience), which is obviously fine but might be why I struggled with it.

It's very disjointed.  Purposely so, I think.  There are a lot of characters, who nearly all have their own backstories.  I often found myself really interested in a backstory about the time the backstory was wrapping up.  

The book had a lot to say about race and class and gentrification and the last season in particular is very bleak.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Death, Drug use, Racial slurs, Racism, Cancer, Chronic illness, Classism, Murder, Terminal illness, Blood, and Police brutality

lizzie24601's review

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

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

2.0

DNF about 60% of the way through. This is 100% a character driven book - there is almost no plot or action at all. It is mostly about a group of Black and brown teenagers and young adults who are employed as construction stackers by an old gangster to keep them out of trouble in an apocalyptic city - but it took me nearly 100 pages to figure that out, since there is no exposition for any of the characters and it's difficult to understand who everyone is and what their relationships are.

The book is mostly comprised of descriptions of the characters' backstories or everyday life, maybe with some overarching goal going on (ex. Jonathan setting up his house or the kids from Bishop's work crew capturing the horses). The pacing is extremely slow and the jumping around in time and between characters is very confusing.

There is no plot and even very little dialogue. Honestly, the few scenes where there is dialogue feel like scenes in a play, where we're either dropped in in the middle of a conversation about nothing in particular, or one character is giving a long-winded monologue. Maybe this would've been better as a play.

Onyebuchi is definitely a skillful writer and his thesis comes through loud and clear as an important and underrepresented message, but this book will give you a headache well before reaching the end.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism and Classism

Moderate: Chronic illness and Addiction

Minor: Death of parent, Grief, Gun violence, Death, Dementia, Police brutality, Child death, Drug abuse, and Drug use

jo_lzr's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Child death, Death of parent, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, Alcoholism, Police brutality, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Alcohol, Colonisation, Drug use, Addiction, Fire/Fire injury, Hate crime, Islamophobia, Animal death, Bullying, Cancer, Chronic illness, Classism, Confinement, Death, Forced institutionalization, Medical trauma, Murder, Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, War, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Child abuse, Addiction, and Infidelity

Minor: Rape

tonysipsandreads's review

There was a whole lot going one. Too many characters trying to tell their stories all at once. The story jumps from character to character so much, it's hard to keep track or remember what's really going on. The pace was too slow for me as well. Overall I just didn't enjoy this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Murder, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual violence, and Violence