Reviews tagging 'Police brutality'

Brotherless Night: A Novel by V.V. Ganeshananthan

7 reviews

qqjj's review against another edition

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

4.0

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read_with_nicki's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

4.0

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kimveach's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-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

5.0

I loved this story. I feel guilty that I have never heard of this civil war in Sri Lanka or the plight of the Tamil people. It is a story of what happens when a minority group is treated as second-class citizens. It's similar to what's happening in Myanmar, Palestine, the Sudan, and many other places worldwide. This particular story focuses on women and their roles as civilians while being related to terrorists and resistance fighters. This book would be an excellent choice for a book club.
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inapopinaaa's review against another edition

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dark emotional inspiring sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

One of the best books I have read, superb writing!
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jmitchell20's review against another edition

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

3.75

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baileyanabella's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes

4.75

This book was dreadfully slow. There is so much preliminary world building and exposition that has to happen before the real bulk of the story can take place, and I probably would have DNF'd it for how slow the pacing was if it hadn't made the WPfF shortlist. 
That said, though, I am glad that I didn't. This is one of the most heartbreaking books I have ever read, but it is so important that narratives like these exist. Sashi being a young girl, just a handful of years younger than myself for a majority of the book, I strongly empathized with her thoughts and actions as she did the best she could in impossibly difficult situations.
War is devastating, for anyone and everyone involved. There is no winner, even when the fighting is over. And this story shows you exactly that. 
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atsundarsingh's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-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

5.0

I couldn't put this down. It was incandescent. It was searing. It made my heart physically ache, and made me do a thousand searches for nonfiction follow-ups. I am 100% going to read Ganeshananthan's previous book. the writing for this just completely gripped me, and once I got going in earnest, it just snowballed. 

The family of the novel's protagonist Sashi is complex, and the book spends the entire time slowly unwinding the moral complexity of strongly held beliefs, and unravelling the word 'terrorist'. I was struck by the way Ganeshananthan made the entire cast of characters possible to understand, and you could see consistency of character even as motivation and ideologies changed. Truly can't wait to insist that everyone read this in 2023 and beyond. 

*Thanks to Random House, NetGalley for the ARC. Book release: 3 Jan 2023* 
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