Reviews tagging 'Grief'

When the Reckoning Comes by LaTanya McQueen

11 reviews

foldingthepage_kayleigh's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-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? Yes

4.75

This book grabs the reader by the throat and forces us to reckon with the horrors of the past along with the characters and understand how these structures loom over us today. Like the FMC Mira, we are witnesses, and how can we just go along with our complicity after we’ve seen, heard and felt our way through this story?

Overall, this was powerful, necessary, unrelenting, brutal and harsh. This was also the first book I’ve ever read that had satirical elements that were so deeply unfunny and made me realize that satire doesn't hinge on humour. 

A note on format:

I read this 50/50 audio and physical. I did prefer the physical, but only because I needed more time with the book. To read and re-read, to sit and think about the passages I read. To re-visit certain chapters for reflection. And to immerse myself in the lyrical writing of LaTanya McQueen.  

That being said, the narration was superb, and I think there were certain performance elements the narrator made that increased the horror of the book. My preference for the physical was despite the fact that the narrator was great.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

beasneaz's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racism, Torture, Blood, Trafficking, Grief, and Murder

Moderate: Child death, Hate crime, Rape, Suicide, and Torture

allisonfagan's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

I felt like this book was very heavy but had enough mystery and twists to keep you engaged. 70% through I felt like we were running nonstop (in the best way possible). Overall this story really made me reflect on the atrocities of slavery and made me realize how even I was desensitized to it to a certain degree.  It truly should never be a topic to be made light of and was probably one of the worst things to happen in human history. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Slavery, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Grief, Murder, Cultural appropriation, and Colonisation

rorikae's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious 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? Yes

4.25

'When the Reckoning Comes' by LaTanya McQueen is a haunting story about the echoes of ghosts of the past. 
When she was young, Mira and her friend Jesse encountered something haunting in the old, rundown plantation in their town. Though they both got out alive, that experience has haunted them both and sent them on different trajectories. Mira has left the town, gone to college, and now has a full time job. She thinks she's fully escaped her past but then she receives a call from her childhood friend Celine. Celine is getting married at the same plantation from Mira's youth, which has now been restored and acts as a tourist attraction. With Celine's insistence, Mira agrees to come home for the wedding, seeking to get to the bottom of what happened that day in her youth and to potentially see Jesse again. 
McQueen does an exceptional job of creating a haunting atmosphere that slowly ramps up throughout the course of the book. These horrors are all based on true events but with an added dash of paranormal. There were moments in this book that were hard, but necessary, to read as McQueen makes the reader confront the true horrors of slavery. One of the most effective aspects of this story is the melding of the past and present day elements. Mira is a great main character who is easy to care for while also being a complex person. I will be interested to see what McQueen writes next as it is clear she is great at creating atmosphere and melding horrors of the past and present to create an engaging narrative. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Hate crime, Misogyny, Racism, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, and Murder

Minor: Rape and Suicide

aisabel's review against another edition

dark 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? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Racism, Slavery, and Violence

Moderate: Gore, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Blood, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

vigil's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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? Yes

2.0

this book held my attention as i read it, but once i put it down, i had little inclination to pick it up again. 

i enjoyed the story, though if you’re looking for a fresh ghost story with twists and turns, this isn’t it. it’s a very classic revenge story and i think it’s strength lies more in it’s themes and how unflinching the author is in her criticism of racism, plantations, and how everyone can play into white supremacy, maliciously or not. my favorite portion of the book is towards the ending

where mira lives through the eyes of one of the slaves, and it uncovers just how horrific slavery really was, and how horrific everyone in the present is for ignoring and exploiting it.

it didn’t quite stick the landing though in my opinion. the latter portion of the book is rather unclear, making it hard to distinguish what fact from fiction and how did some of the more shocking events happen or didn’t happen. this vagueness isn’t bad in and of itself, but it makes the ending even more egregious. all the vague hallucinatory vibes disappear and the book is over because the protagonist literally says it’s over, not because anything is really done. i don’t need the protagonists to stick around and clean up the mess made by racist whites, but what about everything else? it felt like author thought she got her message across sufficiently and forgot about the story. the message it sends is good, but as a book it’s just okay.

also. i found celine’s character to be personally uncomfortable to me as a black person (but all too familiar) but i found the “poor girl dares to try to escape and gets put down like a dog by her partner” portion of the book to be rather distasteful. also a copout, no white person in this book has to personally reckon with anything. they’re either nameless racists, or end up dead.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

itsheyfay's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Racism, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Classism

Moderate: Ableism, Confinement, Death, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Rape, Grief, and Death of parent

Minor: Bullying and Toxic relationship

finleyfrogreads's review against another edition

dark sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, War, and Classism

Moderate: Child abuse, Confinement, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Police brutality, and Injury/Injury detail

savvylit's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.0

When the Reckoning Comes has many layers to its horror. First, there's the genocidal legacy of chattel slavery. Then there are the deeply sadistic acts of this specific plantation's owner. Third, there are groups of murderous ghosts. Fourth, there's deep-seated modern racism and classism. Lastly, there's the unique terror of a plantation becoming a luxury resort.

Like all of the horror in this novel, the latter element of terror is inspired by reality -- many former plantations throughout the American South have been renovated into deluxe event spaces. McQueen skillfully depicts this unique and ignorant glossing over of the truth. That a place of such immense suffering can be turned into a for-profit monument to a romanticized version of antebellum America? How deeply twisted. At the Woodsman plantation central to this novel, not only have the grounds been turned into a resort BUT one of the paid "entertainments" is reenactment of slave labor. Reenactments that are done by local Black people - the very descendants of the folks originally enslaved at that exact location.

Ultimately, When the Reckoning Comes is revenge horror at its finest. The ghosts of slaves that had been brutally tortured ultimately force many white descendants of owners and staff to reckon with their legacy of death and terror. Not only that, but McQueen's story itself pushes readers to consider the myriad, nuanced ways in which genocide echoes throughout the modern American South. The bloody echoes of slavery are still here. And that's the real horror.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, and Classism

ecn's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Hate crime, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism