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fbzcab's review
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-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? Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence, Addiction, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Domestic abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual content
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 β€οΈβπ₯
ππππβ¨
β€οΈβπ₯ 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.
β€οΈβπ₯ 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.
π« Pleeeease check trigger warnings before reading and avoid if you can't take heavy reading right now.
ππππβ¨
β€οΈβπ₯ 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.
β€οΈβπ₯ 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.
π« Pleeeease check trigger warnings before reading and avoid if you can't take heavy reading right now.
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
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 thereβs a word for that I donβt 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.
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 workbookmaddie's review
challenging
dark
sad
slow-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? It's complicated
3.5
I only vaguely knew about the subject matter of this book before going in, and I think it's definitely one that deserves a more detailed understanding of trigger warnings before beginning. Because, dang, this book is dark.
I knew it revolved around a girl named Marina and her killing by a serial killer in Canada, but I didn't realize how much darker and sadder the story would get as it delves into Marina's past and how she wound up at the hands of such a horrible man. And while so many horrible things are told within these pages, Chadbum writes with tenderness, understanding and hope.
Outside of subject matter, I did have a bit of trouble getting into the story. It took maybe 30% of the book for me to start getting into it and reading at a steadier pace. I think Chadbum's writing just didn't connect with me as much as I wanted it to. And maybe also had to do with the fact that a lot of the early narrative is about Marina as a young girl (below 11ish), and I feel like I don't enjoy narratives that focus on young children as much. When she got a bit older, I got more interested in the story.
I also thought the story might be a bit more mystical (and lyrical in the writing), so I think that threw me off a bit.
More of a 3.5 for me, but definitely one to pick up if you're interested in the premise!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced digital copy for review.
I knew it revolved around a girl named Marina and her killing by a serial killer in Canada, but I didn't realize how much darker and sadder the story would get as it delves into Marina's past and how she wound up at the hands of such a horrible man. And while so many horrible things are told within these pages, Chadbum writes with tenderness, understanding and hope.
Outside of subject matter, I did have a bit of trouble getting into the story. It took maybe 30% of the book for me to start getting into it and reading at a steadier pace. I think Chadbum's writing just didn't connect with me as much as I wanted it to. And maybe also had to do with the fact that a lot of the early narrative is about Marina as a young girl (below 11ish), and I feel like I don't enjoy narratives that focus on young children as much. When she got a bit older, I got more interested in the story.
I also thought the story might be a bit more mystical (and lyrical in the writing), so I think that threw me off a bit.
More of a 3.5 for me, but definitely one to pick up if you're interested in the premise!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced digital copy for review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse, Rape, Sexual content, Addiction, Alcohol, Child abuse, Drug use, Sexual violence, and Murder
Moderate: Abandonment and Confinement
nini23's review
challenging
dark
3.0
A Tiny Upward Shove is a fictionalized account of a real life serial murder case that occurred in British Columbia, Canada. Canadians will instantly recognize the name Robert Pickton and 'pig farm, Port Coquitlam,' in association with a very grisly crime scene, the victims missing and murdered women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/robert-pickton-case A wider government inquiry was launched from the lengthy serial killer investigation, into the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) in Canada, with an extensive report and recommendations released on this critical human rights issue and systemic failures. Progress on the recommendations https://globalnews.ca/news/8891593/mmiwg-action-plan-progress/
Accordingly, this novel has disturbing content which includes rape, sexual violence toward women and minors, drug use, separation of mothers from children by the state, sex trafficking, child neglect and abuse, racism, confinement, murder.
Onto this real life case, Melissa Chadburn has grafted a fictional backstory for Willie Pickton's forty-ninth victim - biracial American Marina Salles with a Filipino mother and Black absent father in the military. The text is liberally peppered with Tagalog. An omniscient narrator of Filipino folklore, a ferocious aswang, tells of how she has been in the maternal family for seven generations since the Spanish colonization of Phillipines. Young Marina grows up amid the teachings and admonishments of her lola (grandmother); how to behave as a female, how to get ahead in life.
I appreciate that the author is trying to highlight the socioeconomic disenfranchisement that led Marina to her ending. The issues confronting Vancouver Downtown Eastside then and now of prostitution, homelessness, poverty, trafficking, drugs, mental illness are complex. The women who went missing were met with official apathy and indifference, falling through society's cracks.
I do have a few concerns:
1) This is a real life case with family and friends of the missing and murdered still suffering the pain and trauma. Some of the proposed memorializations of the victims in different forms have been shelved on request by the victims' families or community groups https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/healing-garden-pickon-memorial-port-coquitlam-1.3580342 Note in particular that a painting exhibition and artist illustrations were both deemed distressing to the families. Did the families give permission for this literary rendering of their personal tragedy?
2) The main character Marina spends the majority of her teen years in Los Angeles, United States. She is in placement in her later teen years and after emancipation, lives on her own in LA before heading to Vancouver for a nebulous plot reason. A significant number of Pickton's victims were from First Nations communities
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2007/01/22/who-were-picktons-alleged-victims/ and small Canadian towns.
a) I noticed in the text that Canada was written as if it was an amorphous blob country eg 'Early the next morning, Sabine and Alex left the house and drove home to Canada. Their house sat high on a hill where trees whistle,...' and 'First she knew she needed money for rent, then money for a train ticket to Canada.' Where in Canada?! Ten provinces, three northern territories. Very different distances.
b) For MMIWG, the discussion would have to be about the Indian Act of 1876, broken land treaties, reserves, residential schools, sixties scoop, intergenerational trauma. Because of the Filipino American backstory that the main character is given, we get instead Spaniard colonialist history and the Rodney King LA riots.
c) If we're going to delve into socioeconomic inequalities that ultimately led to the tragedy, then it should be about these Vancouver Eastside dwellers. The vast difference in worlds between East Vancouver and West Vancouver. The harm reduction tactics in use there like safe injection sites. Availability of mental health and addiction recovery services. First Nations child welfare system. Housing unaffordability. The attitude and policing by the RCMP in the area, their ignoring of the initial reports of the crime because the witnesses were deemed 'unreliable.' Instead we get a detailed examination of the child welfare system in LA, child placements by the state and even exactly how much an emancipated teen gets for a stipend there. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/article-jury-says-bc-should-stop-use-of-group-homes-for-indigenous-foster/
There are significant differences in the Canadian social security system, Canadian health-care delivery, Canadian political systems, Canada's laws governing prostitution, Canada's labour standard regulations. Even if the author is more well-versed in American inequalities and the LA child welfare system, it is disingenuous to shoehorn and graft that onto a Canadian national tragedy.
3) A thirteen-year-old Marina is raped and deliberately lies to the police about the identity of her rapist, naming instead her mother's boyfriend I don't think I have to explain why this storyline is disturbing especially when police are already disinclined to believe rape victims.
Thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing an eARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Accordingly, this novel has disturbing content which includes rape, sexual violence toward women and minors, drug use, separation of mothers from children by the state, sex trafficking, child neglect and abuse, racism, confinement, murder.
Onto this real life case, Melissa Chadburn has grafted a fictional backstory for Willie Pickton's forty-ninth victim - biracial American Marina Salles with a Filipino mother and Black absent father in the military. The text is liberally peppered with Tagalog. An omniscient narrator of Filipino folklore, a ferocious aswang, tells of how she has been in the maternal family for seven generations since the Spanish colonization of Phillipines. Young Marina grows up amid the teachings and admonishments of her lola (grandmother); how to behave as a female, how to get ahead in life.
I appreciate that the author is trying to highlight the socioeconomic disenfranchisement that led Marina to her ending. The issues confronting Vancouver Downtown Eastside then and now of prostitution, homelessness, poverty, trafficking, drugs, mental illness are complex. The women who went missing were met with official apathy and indifference, falling through society's cracks.
I do have a few concerns:
1) This is a real life case with family and friends of the missing and murdered still suffering the pain and trauma. Some of the proposed memorializations of the victims in different forms have been shelved on request by the victims' families or community groups https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/healing-garden-pickon-memorial-port-coquitlam-1.3580342 Note in particular that a painting exhibition and artist illustrations were both deemed distressing to the families. Did the families give permission for this literary rendering of their personal tragedy?
2) The main character Marina spends the majority of her teen years in Los Angeles, United States. She is in placement in her later teen years and after emancipation, lives on her own in LA before heading to Vancouver for a nebulous plot reason. A significant number of Pickton's victims were from First Nations communities
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2007/01/22/who-were-picktons-alleged-victims/ and small Canadian towns.
a) I noticed in the text that Canada was written as if it was an amorphous blob country eg 'Early the next morning, Sabine and Alex left the house and drove home to Canada. Their house sat high on a hill where trees whistle,...' and 'First she knew she needed money for rent, then money for a train ticket to Canada.' Where in Canada?! Ten provinces, three northern territories. Very different distances.
b) For MMIWG, the discussion would have to be about the Indian Act of 1876, broken land treaties, reserves, residential schools, sixties scoop, intergenerational trauma. Because of the Filipino American backstory that the main character is given, we get instead Spaniard colonialist history and the Rodney King LA riots.
c) If we're going to delve into socioeconomic inequalities that ultimately led to the tragedy, then it should be about these Vancouver Eastside dwellers. The vast difference in worlds between East Vancouver and West Vancouver. The harm reduction tactics in use there like safe injection sites. Availability of mental health and addiction recovery services. First Nations child welfare system. Housing unaffordability. The attitude and policing by the RCMP in the area, their ignoring of the initial reports of the crime because the witnesses were deemed 'unreliable.' Instead we get a detailed examination of the child welfare system in LA, child placements by the state and even exactly how much an emancipated teen gets for a stipend there. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/article-jury-says-bc-should-stop-use-of-group-homes-for-indigenous-foster/
There are significant differences in the Canadian social security system, Canadian health-care delivery, Canadian political systems, Canada's laws governing prostitution, Canada's labour standard regulations. Even if the author is more well-versed in American inequalities and the LA child welfare system, it is disingenuous to shoehorn and graft that onto a Canadian national tragedy.
3) A thirteen-year-old Marina
Thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing an eARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Mental illness, Blood, Confinement, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Alcoholism, Animal death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Animal cruelty, Rape, and Violence
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