Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

A Tiny Upward Shove by Melissa Chadburn

4 reviews

writtenontheflyleaves's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

A Tiny Upward Shove by Melissa Chadburn ❤️‍🔥
🌟🌟🌟🌟✨

❤️‍🔥 The plot: When Marina Salles is murdered by a serial killer, she transforms into an aswang: a vengeful spirit from her grandmother's Filipino folk tales. In the spirit's quest to avenge Marina's death, she flits through the minds and memories of the people in her life, including her killer, developing a deeper understanding of the forces that propelled her to this tragic end.

I found this book in @anovelideaphilly back in May and the blurb instantly drew me in. I love a ghost story, and I'm really interested in reading more Filipino storytelling (America Is Not The Heart by Elaine Castillo was a highlight of my 2022 reading!) The writing here didn't disappoint: it was lively and vivid and totally compulsive.

It was also brutal. The novel starts with a visceral description of a murder and runs the gamut from childhood sexual assault and abuse to institutionalisation and addiction.

I never know where I land on the idea of "gratuitous" suffering in novels. There is no shortage of suffering in the world, where and why do we draw the line in fiction, especially when it draws from real stories and injustices? What does it mean for us to say there is "too much" pain in a novel?

This book made me even less sure. The reader has no out, no happy ending to look forward to. Some of the scenes here are among the most distressing I've ever read. I wondered what I was supposed to do with all of it, what the purpose was.

Reflecting now, I think maybe that sense of being at a loss was the point, stretching your heart to hold the beauty and the horror together. The moments of tenderness in this book were as keen as the moments of pain, and neither cancelled out the other. It showed that a life is never one thing - not a waste, not ever purely tragic. There was hope here, but it did not allow you to cast off the pain, and I'll be thinking about it for a long time.

❤️‍🔥 Read it if you're not deterred by what I've said above, and liked 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World by Elif Shafak.

🚫 Pleeeease check trigger warnings before reading and avoid if you can't take heavy reading right now.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Addiction, Death, Murder, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Violence, and Physical abuse

juniperbranches's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Child death, Confinement, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Drug abuse, Sexual assault, Blood, Domestic abuse, Abandonment, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, and Racism

ka_cam's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad fast-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

4.75

This is a heavy, dark, deeply sad read. The primary voice of the Aswang (/marina) was compelling and added a poignancy and semi-remove maybe ubique to the semi-first-semi-third person (if there’s a word for that I don’t know it). The love and attempts and love and care throughout really come through. I also personally liked how the title came through. I think the info abt the murderer was much less complex for the amount of time spent on it, though I realize she was working off a real person model there. There is some really tough explicit content here, so please mind the content warnings.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Trafficking, Child abuse, Violence, Physical abuse, Pedophilia, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Forced institutionalization, Emotional abuse, Drug use, Drug abuse, Death, Body horror, Blood, Abandonment, and Addiction

Moderate: Kidnapping, Alcohol, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual content, Racism, Racial slurs, Misogyny, Medical content, and Colonisation

Minor: Animal cruelty, Car accident, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Eating disorder, and Dysphoria

Additional content warnings: child welfare systems, group homes, explicit descriptions of rape of a child and other child sexual and physical abuse, explicit descriptions of sex in the context of sex work

bella_cavicchi's review

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

An absolute gut punch of a novel. It takes fifty or so pages to find its footing, but once it does, it hits hard and hits deeply -- and to that point, I think it deserves a far wider readership than it's currently earned. Let Chadburn's writing serve as a sobering reminder (and call to rage/action) that we continue to neglect women and children with intention. Will be thinking of this one for days. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Rape, Self harm, Animal cruelty, Abandonment, Emotional abuse, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Murder, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Excrement, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, and Misogyny

Moderate: Cursing, Alcohol, Violence, and Alcoholism