Reviews with content warning for Genocide - Everfair

I really wanted to like this book because the concept is so cool: a steampunk story where African characters drive King Leopold out of the Congo. Unfortunately, that's not really what this book was. There were so many characters but hardly any of them were African, and the disjointed way the story was told with so many POV characters in little vignettes over several decades (Leopold is gone around the 50% mark and the rest is kind of bland politicking around WWI) that it was hard to really care what happened to any individual character. The conflict about the characters who helped drive Leopold out living on illegally purchased land is interesting but barely addressed. There are so many huge age gap romances for no reason, which is a pain because there is way too much focus on the romances considering how little time each character has to make an impression.

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toopunkrockforshul's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective slow-paced

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

3.5

I enjoyed this book in the end, a very interesting premise and fully developed characters. The timeline is so long and the pace quite slow, which I do think fits the story, but for me personally made it difficult to really get into for a long reading session. Glad that I did finish this book though, and appreciate the ending and the lessons that can be drawn from this book in our own timeline.

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