Reviews tagging 'Abandonment'

Poor Deer by Claire Oshetsky

6 reviews

alexandryareads's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, and Animal death

Minor: Miscarriage and Sexual violence

temymm's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Car accident, Suicidal thoughts, Mental illness, Death, Child death, and Abandonment

belovedb33's review

emotional reflective sad 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Sexual assault, Child death, Body horror, Ableism, Emotional abuse, Bullying, Self harm, Misogyny, Domestic abuse, Blood, Abandonment, Child abuse, Alcohol, Medical trauma, Grief, Death, and Animal death

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Fatphobia

mmccombs's review against another edition

dark reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

Chouette is a book I think about quite regularly and I have a feeling Poor Deer will be the same! Dark, so sad, but also ultimately hopeful, Poor Deer imagines alternate memories and pasts and futures. It was interesting reading this right after Interesting Facts About Space, another new release where a young woman navigates childhood shame and false memories. The writing was so beautiful and often seeping with a kind of gross, dank undertone that lent to a dark fairytale feeling, I could so fully see and smell and feel this book. The ending didn’t fully land for me, but everything was so strong otherwise, it is a story with staying power.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Medical content, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Self harm, Abandonment, and Mental illness

savvylit's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Margaret Murphy is an endearing and heartbreaking unreliable narrator. For most of Poor Deer, Margaret is a child simply trying her best to interpret a world of adults - namely her single mother and aunt. Oshetsky excels at writing what feels like a genuine child's perspective of the world. Margaret is adept and intuitive and yet so deeply underestimated. Though never explicitly stated, there's an implication of neurodivergence in a time and place in which adults had little to no understanding of such things.

As a whole, Poor Deer is an empathetic and imaginative look at the stories that we tell ourselves in order to survive. And the circumstances that push us to develop a complex and self-punishing interior world.

Many thanks to @eccobooks and @netgalley for the eARC of Poor Deer in exchange for my honest review! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Abandonment, Ableism, Child abuse, Grief, and Mental illness

lyla's review

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.0

A really fresh and clever narrative structure - the epitome of unreliable narrator. I always love a child narrator, because it lays out the moral lessons with greater purity and innocence. A sad portrait of motherhood and family bonds, the book always leaves you wanting more from the characters in the way they behave and treat others. Definitely not a feel good novel, but an interesting premise and hugely reflective.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Murder, Emotional abuse, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, Abandonment, and Death