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just_one_more_paige's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
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? It's complicated
4.0
A few months into working at my local library, I found the stash of ARCs we’ve been sent that are “free to a good [employee’s] home” and it’s been hard to not grab them all and run, honestly. I try to be judicious about what I take, so that there are options left for other people. Yea, I know, I’m too nice. Haha. Anyways, this one was on the top of the pile right when I first found it and that cover caught my eye like you wouldn’t believe – or maybe you do believe it since the colors are simply gorgeous. And then as I got closer and saw that title, I just couldn’t say no. I judged it, found it worthy, and brought it home with me. Now look – it’s a recent release that’s getting a fair amount of love and I feel so cool for having read it this soon after publication!
This is a story of lives intertwined in Baxter Beach, Barbados. Locals Lala and Adan are expecting a child, but the night Lala goes into labor and leaves their house looking for Adan, she interrupts him in the middle of robbing the nearby home of a well-off ex-pat, causing the home invasion to take a fatal turn. When, weeks later, Lala’s baby is found dead on the beach and Mira Whalen continues to be lost in the grief of her husband’s unsolved murder and Adan’s friend Tone tries to help fix his and Lala’s troubles and Sergeant Beckles follows his gut toward solving these deaths/murders, these characters’ stories unfold together leading to an ever more tragic finale.
Whoa. I honestly can’t believe that this is a debut. The writing is simply stunning. There is a gorgeous cadence to the writing, a lyricism, that you cannot help but fall into as a reader. Beautiful despite the difficulty, and sometimes just straight ugliness, of the topics it’s describing. Also, having listened to the audiobook (thanks Libro.fm!) along with reading the physical, I cannot help but think that the narrator had a great role in the way I interpreted that cadence, because oh my goodness the voice and tone and rise/fall of the narration was simply perfect. Also, the multiple perspectives through which this story is told, each revealing different aspects, small details, and myriad individual interpretations of the same events is done so, so well. The interconnections between the characters were clear and believable (sometimes I gripe with these types of novel formulas because things seem too convenient to be realistic or I’m left with certain holes/questions at the end) and the tiny differences in perception or experience that make each character see what they see, whether it’s the full or accurate truth or not, and the way that ripples out into decisions and consequences across time and lives and events is all phenomenal executed.
As far as the content and themes themselves…also whoa. The list of content warnings for this novel is long, including sexual assault and rape and incest, domestic abuse – physical and mental/emotional, death of a child, violence and violent death and gun violence, miscarriage, murder. But somehow, even though all that happened within these pages, it never seemed like the violence and abuse and death eclipsed the characters themselves. I don’t know how best to describe it, but I want it to be clear that reading this did not feel like reading trauma porn (or whatever the right vocabulary is to describe that). Rather, this novel stayed truly focused on the development of the character’s living through and within and responsible for these events. The portrayal of their lives, which they lived within the circumstances they were handed, circumstances that for many of them were barriers or lacking in opportunity or limited for systemic and cyclical reasons and not reasons within their personal control, was heartrending. Truly. The loss and suffering were…outsized…and each faced time(s) when different decisions could have been made. As a reader, I sure hoped they’d have been made, for the characters’ sakes, for their chance at a potential for a happier/easier outcome. Yet, I can’t say I don’t understand why they weren’t, sometimes not at all and sometimes not until it was too late, and I mourned with and for the characters when they reached the moments when they realized it. Anyways, I am not totally sure I communicated what I wanted to here, but the point is, while these themes are intense and heavy and potentially triggering AF, they were also handled in a way that made them feel like the “setting” and ground-laying details that they were – integral to the plot and the characters, but never the dominant piece. What I am leaving this novel with is a deep sense of these characters and their relationships to each other, centering on Lala and spiraling outwards to include her first meeting and history with Tone, the way she met and married Adan, how she came to be raised by her grandmother, how her story became intertwined with Mira Whalen (who we get to know as well, her own story as an island girl who came to be married to an ex-pat, and her following grief at his loss) and that of Sergeant Beckles. And here and there we are given other, one-off, perspectives of peripheral characters whose certain decisions/actions, unbeknownst to them, create pivotal changes and reverberations in the lives of our main characters. I want to finish with a mention of where things end. A “wrap-up” for each character that, in many cases are tragic line with the rest of the novel, but also seemed right, providing each with a landing place that, whether it’s deserved or unjust, open-ended or permanent, just…fit. Which is always a feat worth admiring.
Jones combines awfully dark themes and gritty realities with expressive writing and detailed, well-paced plot/character advancement in a debut novel that is truly impressive. Although this is not a novel to enter into lightly, it is one that, put simply, is just really good.
“What are secrets but things we want to forget? Why then would be keep the acquaintance of others who remember them?”
“In those tunnels, you understand that you do not learn to love a man, because for the right man there is no need for the learning, the love is the most natural thing in the world. You understand that if you must learn to love a man, he is probably not the man you should be loving.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abortion, Animal death, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Grief, Gun violence, Incest, Infertility, Miscarriage, Murder, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, and Violence
breannamarie619's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Gun violence, Incest, Murder, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, and Violence
Moderate: Infidelity, Medical content, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Vomit, and Racial slurs
thebakerbookworm's review against another edition
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? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
A hard story with some achingly compelling characters, this book feels like poetry. The setting is vivid, and it portrays a sharp contrast between rich and poor, black and white, woman and man. The title comes from a legend that Lala's grandmother tells her at the beginning, a cautionary tale that underlies the entire book. The story also explores how violence effects different people's lives.
We get several perspectives, and each new perspective adds a new layer to the story, giving complexity to every character, even those that at first appear to be minor. Connections between characters slowly unfold, as the timeline jumps around from present to past. Lala is a strong lead; you feel for her and how she struggles to break out of the life she's trapped in. She's experienced so much tragedy yet is still determined and strong and loving, and I loved seeing her growth throughout the story.
This book was hard to read at times (a lot of tragic backstory), but these characters will grip you and refuse to let go. This is not a story to be forgotten.
I listened to the audio, and the narration was perfection.
Thank you to Libro.fm, Hachette Audio, and the author for the ALC.
We get several perspectives, and each new perspective adds a new layer to the story, giving complexity to every character, even those that at first appear to be minor. Connections between characters slowly unfold, as the timeline jumps around from present to past. Lala is a strong lead; you feel for her and how she struggles to break out of the life she's trapped in. She's experienced so much tragedy yet is still determined and strong and loving, and I loved seeing her growth throughout the story.
This book was hard to read at times (a lot of tragic backstory), but these characters will grip you and refuse to let go. This is not a story to be forgotten.
I listened to the audio, and the narration was perfection.
Thank you to Libro.fm, Hachette Audio, and the author for the ALC.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, and Violence
Moderate: Death of parent, Drug use, Grief, Incest, Miscarriage, Rape, and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Animal death and Blood
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