Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

Ella Minnow Pea: A Progressively Lipogrammatic Epistolary Fable by Mark Dunn

2 reviews

moondragon8's review against another edition

funny tense fast-paced

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

3.75

i liked it! i will say you can kind of tell this is a novel written because someone thought "wow, wouldn't it be cool if..." and then just kind of went from there without giving too much thought to the meat of the story. (the thing that really kept nagging at me was that supposedly the island had declared itself an independent nation from the us, but like...come on. anyone can declare that, it doesn't mean the us will actually agree. and how much technology did they have, anyway? and how big was this island???) 
the story was also darker than i expected, in a sort of weird way where you...didn't really feel the emotional resonance of those moments, but were just like "damn, that's fucked up. we're just moving on from that? okay". i guess some of this could be attributed to the epistolary format, but...i dunno.
still, a fun kind of experiment, and a truly unique form of the dystopian novel. i'm glad i picked it up!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Deportation, Grief, Violence, and Mental illness

Moderate: Alcoholism, Alcohol, Child abuse, and Suicide attempt

quandtuniverse's review against another edition

challenging funny hopeful informative lighthearted reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.5

This book is like The Crucible, if The Crucible were an absurdist comedy about an alphabetically-minded cult. It's definitely light-hearted enough to be fun to read, but the social themes and critique of tyrannical governments and unjust laws, as well as the social motives why people rat each other out to such governments, are strongly there. Wrapped up in an ingeniously constructed narrative with very precise and creative word choice, this novel is a treat for those who consider language to be one of the most magical and fascinating aspects of humanity.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Death, Violence, and Alcoholism

Minor: Child abuse and Suicide

This book may be difficult for people with dyslexia, as it plays with language in unusual ways.

Near the end, when almost all the letters have been banned, the council allows people to misspell words with similar-sounding letters; a lot of the text then becomes written in this quasi-phonetic spelling, such as "ewe" in place of "you", for example.

Due to the epistolary format much of the violent content goes undescribed, but the story does revolve around an increasingly strict police state that enacts harsh punishments on those who violate the letter bans. Near the end,

one character attempts suicide twice (and fails both times). This is treated somewhat humorously, though it may depend on the perspective of the characters involved.