Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

3 reviews

scmiller's review

challenging dark emotional funny informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Child abuse, Colonisation, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Violence, Gun violence, Hate crime, Pandemic/Epidemic, Abandonment, Addiction, Body horror, Confinement, Cultural appropriation, Racism, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Kidnapping, Rape, Animal death, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Pedophilia, Death of parent, Medical trauma, Confinement, Suicide attempt, Sexual violence, Alcohol, Police brutality, Trafficking, Sexual assault, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, Medical content, and Torture

Minor: Trafficking

cappuccino136's review

emotional informative reflective sad 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? Yes

5.0

A small, independent bookstore in Minneapolis becomes a community center for readers and a haven for Tookie, who has a traumatic past. Having served 10 years, finally her wrongful conviction is reversed and she is let out of prison. Tookie gets a job and finds peace recommending just the right book for each reader who asks. At the opening of this book, the store's most annoying employee has died and starts haunting the store. Flora visits Tookie inparticular. But why? This is thematically rich and emotionally intense. The second half of the novel deals with living through the COVID pandemic and the events and aftermath of the murder of George Floyd. The author balances emotionally harrowing content with moments of warmth and humor. There is found family and community around the bookshop. The prose is powerful and evocative. The importance of stories and books and love of literature is a constant throughline. This is a snapshot of a moment in time for America and what we lived through and have to grapple with from our history and our justice system. It does not offer any prescriptions or answers. There are no shining heroes. Just people and communities trying to live their lives and what it means to be a family or a community together.  

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Racism, Emotional abuse, and Police brutality

prettycloud's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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

4.75

This book feels like the pandemic: just when you think you've found the rhythms of normal life, you feel the uncertainty as threads come loose bit by bit until the whole thing unravels. It's a powerful look at the way that unraveling gave people in the US a new understanding of our own complacency, caused people to question the facts of life we'd come to accept. The energy that flowed into anti-racism work in that summer of 2020 feels vibrant and real in this book without being too trite. And it does not shy away from the nuances of systemic and interpersonal racism!

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Medical content, Police brutality, Alcohol, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Grief, Body horror, Abandonment, Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Cultural appropriation, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Sexual assault, Trafficking, Sexual violence, Xenophobia, Domestic abuse, Toxic friendship, Torture, Slavery, and Sexual content

Minor: Colonisation, War, and Racism

This book addresses the horrors of colonialism and historic wrongs, but it doesn't twist the knife or delight in violence. The characters in the present experience common experiences during the first year of COVID, from generalized pandemic anxiety to

police violence and hospitalization from the virus

. The main character had previously endured police and other violence during her incarceration, which she describes in the beginning of the book and which forms part of a later conflict. No one in the present tense of the book abuses drugs or alcohol, but the main character's mom was an addict and neglected her, and she does describe this.