Reviews with content warning for Car accident - Bewilderment

I absolutely loved The Overstory and was excited to move on to Bewilderment. It became clear within the first third of the book that I would not enjoy the depth of character development that I enjoyed in the previous work.

I abandoned this one at the point when

the father physically abuses his autistic (but not officially autistic!) son. The ableist stereotypes were too much for me, as was the authors' decision to pair a disabled child with a neglectful and abusive father, then pass that off as "dad is just grieving".

I did not find any of the characters likeable or relatable, although the son could have been if he had been treated as a human and not defined solely by his neurodivergence.

I acknowledge that my viewpoint may be biased as I work in mental health with children and families who fit this description, thus it may have hit too close to home. Still, I really would prefer to read stories about neurodivergent folks written by members of that community. Otherwise, it too often comes across as exploitative.

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perseusj4ckson's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring sad medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

i’m devastated. powers has done it again.

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brucy's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

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m4rtt4's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.5

Like Overstory, this book also gave me so much to think about — what is important in life, what even is life? It was also highly emotional and gave an interesting insight on raising a child on the spectrum. This book had so much potential, but it aimed too high. There were so much interesting concepts like decoded neurofeedback and the whole near-future dystopian world with all its catastrophes; it's almost criminal of Powers to create such future scenarios and only mention them in a single sentence, a fleeting moment. I was very intrigued at first, but I lost my interest more and more towards the ending because I knew that I'd never get the explanations I wanted. In that way the story kind of stayed true to itself, though — just like me, we as a society will never know enough about this world and all our answers might be wrong. The ending was lame, it was too dramatic for no reason and the results weren't even properly dealt with.

the death of Robin was so unnecessary and didn't even give the story any emotional value as it was just quietly swept under the carpet — also you just can't end the book by him dying without even telling us the consequences?? just let him live, his death didn't even have the symbolic impact of 'we humans are doomed' as it probably was intended to.

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hanelisil's review

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challenging emotional sad medium-paced

4.0

Great setup. Definitely heart-wrenching. The ending didn't feel right.

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hippejulia's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

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

3.5

Aika masentava kuvaus jostain lähitulevaisuudesta joka ei edes ole ilmastokriisikuvauksillaan niin kauana todellisuudesta. Paikoitellen minusta vähän ableistinen.

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