Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Native Son by Richard Wright

5 reviews

thatone2112's review

dark tense

• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Racial slurs, Murder, and Racism

Moderate: Rape, Toxic relationship, Sexual content, and Police brutality

hleary's review against another edition

challenging dark tense slow-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, Racism, and Death

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Blood, and Rape

Minor: Classism and Alcohol

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

kliu55's review

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

Native Son is a classic book I can always return to and rediscover some new aspect I hadn't noticed before. The nuances of this book are what make it so brilliant-- Bigger's name, Mrs. Dalton's blindness, Mr. Dalton's job, the representation of communism, Mrs. Thomas' namelessness, the list goes on. With such a complicated relationship to Bigger, readers are can never be comfortable fully supporting or hating him. The ending speech where Wright arguably inserts himself makes matters all the more complicated. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Rape, Toxic relationship, Torture, Sexual violence, Racism, Physical abuse, and Death

hawkrose18's review

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.75

CAWPILE: 4.71

So I am pretty sure that I am not supposed to like the main character, but I really didn't like Bigger. I really didn't like how he was justifying his horrid actions to himself, and I understand why it was that way, but I just didn't like it. I know that Bigger was an uneducated Black man in the 1930s so his actions and thoughts made sense, but Bigger just got on my nerves so much and I don't know if that was the intention or not. I did like some of the lines in here and the commentary was pretty decent in my opinion, but I just was kind of grossed out by the thoughts and actions that Bigger had about/towards women because most of them were unnecessary in my opinion. I'm not an own voices reviewer and I did have to read this book for school so take that into account when reading this review. I don't think that this book is necessarily meant for me, but in the long run I am glad that I did read it, I just wish I liked it as much as I was expecting myself to like it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Violence, Toxic relationship, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Sexism, Racism, Racial slurs, Police brutality, Physical abuse, Murder, Misogyny, Emotional abuse, Death, Cursing, and Blood