Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - The Last White Man

This is very short, I didn't get on with the matter-of-fact delivery, for a premise that is so interesting and plucked from the 'what-if?' universe, I expected more excitement or depth to be given rather than worked for?

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sarahholliday's review

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challenging hopeful reflective 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

3.75

I think The Last White Man would make for a fantastic read alongside other works that tackle similar topics, employ the same literary devices, and offer different approaches to the "race transformation" plot. There's a lot to discuss here, and though I personally didn't find Hamid's approach to be particularly satisfying, I would love to dig into it with others.

I don't usually enjoy Hemingway-eque, stream of consciousness writing styles, but there was something about Hamid's rambling sentences and odd colloquialisms that kept me engaged.

Overall, I think a lot of the heft of the novel comes from its representation of events we've collectively lived through recently—militant responses to unrest, racial tension, confinement, etc. The events of the novel, apart from their real life counterparts, feel overly simplistic. Maybe that's a result of our limited perspective, stuck as we are within Anders' POV. Or maybe Hamid's happily-ever-ending just feels to unrealistic.

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mmccombs's review against another edition

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reflective medium-paced

3.5

Interesting premise that opens the doors to a lot of thought-provoking ideas, but it just didn’t feel fully fleshed out. The writing was just okay, the narration of the audiobook was just okay, the character work was just okay. It was okay! I wish we had driven deeper into the characters’ reactions to the change (honestly I didn’t buy that a majority of white people would be so chill with no longer being white). The concept is interesting enough to have engaged me, but nothing else really worked.

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