Reviews tagging 'Domestic abuse'

Native Son by Richard Wright

6 reviews

dustghosts's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Police brutality, Misogyny, Sexism, Racism, Murder, Racial slurs, Rape, Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Gore, Alcoholism, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

juliabristow's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional fast-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Racism, Racial slurs, and Violence

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Classism, and Death

Minor: Alcohol and Rape

elizafiedler's review

challenging dark reflective fast-paced

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

4.5

The narration is masterful. It lets us into Bigger's inner world in ways that Bigger seems incapable of expressing in words himself.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Murder, Racism, Racial slurs, Death, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Alcohol, Body horror, Classism, Domestic abuse, and Suicidal thoughts

heybrownberry's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This was so challenging to listen to without feeling  anger and sorrow, but that’s what gave the book its greatest appeal. It was so real and so emotional as to be completely believable and reflective true events.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Hate crime, Death, Abandonment, and Classism

michaelion's review

challenging dark informative tense slow-paced

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

1.75

Dear StoryGraph, I implore you, please add a trigger tag specifically for misogynoir, because it's disgusting how much of it is in this book.

The choice to open the book with Bigger killing a rat, then terrorizing his sister to the point where she faints and he laughs about it is mild foreshadowing of what's to come. Also, unrelated to the opening scene, there's something poetic about everything black men fear about being caught doing with a white woman, they do to Black women. Justice4Bessie!

If you're planning on reading this, brace yourself. In my edition, there was an excerpt where Wright tells the readers of a book club that the first draft of this book was 576 pages. Which actually makes me like this book less, because it could've easily been 200 pages shorter and been a tighter, sharper, better story. It was a drag to get through reading. In the third section of the book alone, one character monologues for 23 pages with no breaks. After a certain point you simply have to start skimming. But, I promise, you're not missing much.

I gave this rating an extra .25 for Jan and Max. It sucks that the characters I like most were the not-like-the-others whites!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Rape, and Racism

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Sexual assault, Murder, Toxic relationship, Violence, Racial slurs, Sexism, Classism, and Death

Minor: Addiction, Animal death, Xenophobia, Alcohol, Body horror, Alcoholism, Antisemitism, Animal cruelty, and Blood

hoppingpages's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense

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

3.5

The protagonist set my head on fire.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Murder, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Misogyny, and Injury/Injury detail