Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

Native Son by Richard Wright

8 reviews

morenowagain's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark informative sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Classism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Alcohol, Rape, Murder, Sexual violence, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Gore, Antisemitism, Religious bigotry, Racism, Racial slurs, and Police brutality

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

loverofwisdomandmen's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective tense slow-paced

4.25

Bro. I still need to do my deep dive for ap literature about this but UGH this was a PAGE TURNER.  Richard Wright had me on the edge of my seat- asking my study hall teacher whether or not human bones would burn in a furnace 😭 .  Just a very good piece of literature although I can’t disagree with the feminist criticisms of how one dimensional some of the women were depicted compared to the men- but that’s a whole nother can of worms- this is a gem of realist societal criticism . 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Racism, Racial slurs, Sexual content, Blood, Antisemitism, Murder, Addiction, Death, Gore, and Violence

laurbubbles's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Sexual violence, Gore, Murder, Blood, Racism, Racial slurs, and Rape

Moderate: Alcoholism and Alcohol

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