Reviews tagging 'Hate crime'

Ain't Burned All the Bright by Jason Reynolds

7 reviews

stephmcoakley's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

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fatkidatheartreads's review against another edition

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emotional

5.0

We still here, we still here.
This book transported me back to 2020.
I am horrified, heartbroken, terrified, hopeful, tearful and absolutely shaken by how blessed I am to have survived 2020. A lot of people did not. That's a sad reality and  absolutely heartbreaking. 
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overbooked207's review

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dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

📖 Ain’t Burned All The Bright by Jason Reynolds and Jason Griffin Book Review 📖

1st book of April 2022 and 13th of the year:

Following the story of a Black American family in 2020, this is such a powerful and moving book about the Covid pandemic/lockdown and the horrific violence against Black Americans, and the impact of those things and more on people. The art was absolutely beautiful and impactful, and the story, how the breathing metaphor was used, and the lack of a lot of words, allowing the art to tell a lot of the story, were so important and done so well. I highly recommend picking this up! TW for police brutality, racism, hate crimes, death, violence, gun violence, the Covid pandemic, sickness, grief, murder, and medical content📚
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kyrstin_p1989's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This book is a stunning work of art. A time capsule of what it meant to live and love through 2020 this book is absolutely breathtaking. It will break your heart and instill hope for where we go next. 
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jessicaludden's review

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challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This was beautiful.
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librarymouse's review

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challenging emotional funny hopeful reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

There is no better way to describe Ain't Burned All the Bright than that it is breathtaking. The art and writing line up with one another, mingle, and then diverge across the pages pages, allowing the story to be told in two ways that don't always agree, and which make the story more enrapturing and human. While reading I stopped and took a picture of the page with the lines "And still he does this from the other room / screaming his love through the door", about the narrator's sick father. Out of the whole book, that line stuck out to me the most. We all have loved and lost or nearly lost someone during 2020, and the image of someone screaming their love to their family from isolation, just in case, was so heart wrenching. An interesting theme shared throughout the writing and illustration is that the instant the news switches to commercial, the narrator feels more optimistic. A larger portions of the illustration spreads are done in color and the illustrations have more variety of color. When the news switches back on and the pages jar back to gray scale, it makes the reader feel like the bottom has dropped out of their stomach. The ways each of the narrator's family members deal with the pandemic, police brutality and racism, and quarantining show different coping mechanisms. The narrator looks into themself, worrying and searching for ways to help. The narrator's brother gets absorbed by a video game, seeking an escape from their reality. The narrator's sister sees injustice and hardship and seeks to make tangible change to the world they live in. The narrator's parents are more complex. Their father is trying to get better and their mother is trying to hold herself together, and they each use facets of their children's coping mechanisms to do so. I really enjoyed the motif of the father stitching together the colorful squares as he starts to get well. The colors seem to be tied to the narrator's mental state, and to have their father well again seems to be doing them wonders. Ain't Burned All the Bright is one of the most unique books I've ever read
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kayladaila's review

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

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