Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

El Color del Asesinato de Bee Larkham by Sarah J. Harris

5 reviews

cnannery19'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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Gaslighting, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Murder, Physical abuse, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Violence, Cancer, Medical content, Pregnancy, Bullying, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Child abuse, Child death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Rape, Sexual violence, Self harm, and Sexual assault

another_typo's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, and Cursing

Minor: Animal death, Pregnancy, Death of parent, and Vomit

bug_lightyear's review against another edition

2.0

An awful book. Why did an author who has no first hand experience in autism choose to write such a story? The main character is an autistic kid who sees colours for sounds and is face blind, and is framing himself as a murderer but nobody believes him. This book has bullying, r-word insults, child abuse and more awful themes, and the autistic kid is mostly a stereotype of being a genius at painting and doing quite bad with social cues, with a dad who doesn't understand his stimming (flapping and rocking to keep up with the stereotypes). He loves parakeets and despite other reviewers hating them I actually missed more heavy infodumping because he clearly has a deep interest in them and knows more than we're told.
The intrigue peaks with more child abuse and a very distressed main character. I got this book for free because the library was giving it away and I was wondering why, well now I understand, it's not a good book especially taken as a book to understand autism or synaesthesia. I was looking forward to reading a possibly relatable book from an autistic point of view, but it's written by someone who did research, and that research falls short from portraying a genuine autistic character. 
I usually avoid these kind of books and themes and should have looked at content warnings before. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Sexual violence, Child abuse, and Gun violence

Moderate: Toxic friendship, Suicidal thoughts, Stalking, Self harm, Physical abuse, Pedophilia, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Sexual violence, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Pregnancy, Rape, Murder, Medical trauma, Gun violence, Grief, Death of parent, Vomit, Mental illness, Adult/minor relationship, and Ableism

betsygrace's review against another edition

emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

This book left me pondering for a while. I LOVED reading a perspective of a neurodivergent character and felt seen from that, but there were elements of the plot that seemed to focus on the MC’s suffering and differences in negative ways. While it is good that the bullying autistic people experience was highlighted, I hated that it was a plot point. Idk, it just made me feel uneasy. I liked Jasper as a character but he was dealt a shitty hand. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Sexual assault, Stalking, Cancer, Rape, Sexual violence, Abandonment, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Bullying, Grief, Medical content, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, Murder, Confinement, Pedophilia, Sexual content, Ableism, Domestic abuse, Alcohol, Physical abuse, and Adult/minor relationship

maisierosereads's review against another edition

challenging funny mysterious medium-paced

4.0

 "The Colour of Bee Larkham's Murder" is an interesting mystery told from the perspective of Jasper, an autistic teenager with both synaesthesia (i.e. he sees sounds as colours) and prosopagnosia (a.k.a. "face blindness"). One of Jasper's special interests is birds, and this leads him to befriend a new neighbour (Bee Larkham) when parakeets start living in a tree outside her house.

I really liked the pacing of this book, with small details being revealed as the story goes on and Jasper continues his investigation - through his observations, conversations, and memories. While I did predict some parts of the big reveal quite early on in the book, I still enjoyed the journey to that point of the story.

This book is not a lighthearted read - it contains many difficult and challenging themes in addition to the murder in the title, as shown in my list of content warnings below. However, it is infused with humour to balance this - not at Jasper's expense, but from his perspective (often at how ridiculous the neurotypical adults around him are).

Although Jasper repeatedly faces ableism from other characters, and is often misunderstood or underestimated, I did feel the author made it clear that Jasper's perspective is important and that he should be valued. She also uses Jasper's internal monologue to counter some harmful viewpoints - such as the beliefs that Jasper should not stim, or engage in his special interests, or talk about his synaesthesia. Several of the other characters also develop throughout the book so that they have a better understanding of Jasper by the end. Of course, it would have been wonderful if more of them had a positive view of Jasper from the start as well as an accurate understanding of autism; but it is clear that the author put considerable effort into her research to try to make this representation of neurodivergence as accurate as possible despite it not being own-voices.

I would love to read more mysteries from neurodiverse perspectives, and always welcome suggestions! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Mental illness, Murder, Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, and Vomit

More information about content warnings - no character names given. Adult/minor relationship:

an adult character (20s) is in a relationship with a teenager (15/16 years old).

Pedophilia, rape, and child abuse:

one of the characters was sexually abused as a child. The same character was also emotionally & physically abused by a different adult.