Reviews tagging 'Abandonment'

Sabrina & Corina: Stories by Kali Fajardo-Anstine

20 reviews

bookishmillennial's review

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challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
disclaimer: I don’t really give starred reviews. I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Find me here: https://linktr.ee/bookishmillennial

My favorite stories from this short story collection were “Sisters” and “Remedies”. It is not lost on me that I chose the two stories where siblinghood was most salient 🥹

In “Sisters,” we are given a slice of life of Doty and Tina’s current situations, as Tina is dedicated to finding a life partner. Doty is questioning what she wants for herself (and seemingly her own sexual orientation👀), but mostly, her mind is occupied by thinking about a missing young woman from their hometown, Filipina-American Lucia. It’s clear that Tina and Doty’s priorities are on opposite ends of the spectrum during this story, and this felt like a commentary on and allegory for sexual misconduct and unwanted attention or advances. I related to Doty’s consumption of worrying over Lucia’s whereabouts and then resignation to how cishet men get to act towards women. 

In “Remedies,” Clarisa’s mom tries to develop a relationship with Clarisa’s half brother, Harrison. Clarisa and Harrison’s dad abandoned them both, but they’re around the same age and Clarisa’s mom wants them to have a relationship. She picks him up from a seemingly poverty-stricken area and the entire household contracts lice! It’s interesting, because Clarisa had lice before Harrison came over, and she noted how “dirty” Harrison and his house were. Their story made me feel sad, but Grandma Estrella was there to clean everything up for the most part! 

Overall, I thought some stories were just fine and that’s pretty par for the course when you read a short story collection. I appreciated reading about these women from Northern Colorado, and would seek our KFA’s work in the future! 

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ghq's review against another edition

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

2.75

I connected with a few of the stories but most of them felt contrived. The majority of the characters didnt have much depth and only 3 of the stories actually had latinx/native culture at the center of the story. I thought I would enjoy relating to the characters but this collection mainly felt like what other people think latinx/native culture is, rather than feeling authentic. 

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mnerd63's review against another edition

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

4.0


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katieperk's review

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sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.75


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readingwithkaitlyn's review against another edition

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reflective medium-paced
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25


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livcab's review

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emotional reflective sad 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? It's complicated

5.0


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myrtosfullybooked's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • 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

Sabrina & Corina, Kali Fajardo-Anstine 🌼🥀💧 

I've decided to stop giving star reviews to story collections because as we all know, each story will be different and some will hit a chord more than others, but for this book, I couldn't resist. 

The stories in this collection deal with painful themes like intergenerational violence, abandonment, and discrimination, but they are written gently, and they flow easily. If anything, the writing felt minimal but, just like the women whose stories it portrayed, hid many deeper layers - not all of them meant to or being fully revealed to the reader. I feel like I learned a lot about the experiences of Indigenous and Latina women in the American West without the book ever becoming didactic or compromising the atmosphere of the story told. 

Tomi, Any Further West, and Ghost Sickness were my favourites from the collection. Any Further West, especially, felt like a punch in the stomach, but it was so beautifully well-written. I may not be able to explain it very well, but we see characters lost, self-destructive, desperate, or perpetually in pain, and yet somehow what stayed with me was their strength and their survival. The cycles of violence and pain sometimes seem endless and inescapable, but every now and then a daughter will get away and make it; a grandmother will leave a legacy to be honoured; a cousin will be remembered for more than her beauty even if it's by only one person; a lost girl might be found... Normally, these would have been the type of stories I would have found so grim and depressing, and I was really surprised to find myself not wanting the book to end. It is all the things sad girl literature (or the samples of it I've read at least) is trying to be and fails. 

I am so grateful to @bouebooks for putting this book on my radar. I will certainly be reading Woman of Light too.

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sarahemhavens's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? N/A

4.0

 Sabrina & Corina is a collection of short stories on a range of topics including death, sickness, grief, loss, oppression and also culture, history, love, family, strength in the face of adversity, perseverance, and coming of age.

More specifically, the topics that I found most moved by were the talk of ‘westward expansion’, the destruction of native peoples and cultures, whitewashing and gentrification, western medicine vs herbal medicine, and the mistreatment and objectification of women.

Of the eleven stories, my favorites were:
Remedies
Tomi
Any Further West
All Her Names
Ghost Sickness (this one shook me most)

Biggest takeaway quotes/thoughts for me:
- “afraid of letting any amount of death work its way into me”
- “that was the first time that I missed someone while sitting right next to them”
- “Sabrina was to forever face ceilings and casket tops padded in pink satin”
- white people (“Generations of tragedy free living”) steam rolling over native culture, destroying their lands and throwing up concrete gentrification jungles that only erode years later in our failing society. (The us’ history and mistreatment of peoples never fails to devastate me, nor should it - we should constantly be reminding ourselves and educating ourselves, not try to brush anything under the rug like we tend to in the us)
- “people, we learned, weren’t permanent and neither were their sicknesses”
- “maidens strapped to railroad tracks and cowboy heroes shot dead” (“heroes”)
- “money comes with chains”
- “you make me feel full, I’m heavy with you” 

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euphoricallydreaming's review against another edition

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

3.75

It's really good! I found some of the stories depressing, so I hesitate to say that I liked it for the actual stories, but it was really well written and the stories were incredibly important

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zeeck07's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional 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? It's complicated

4.0


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