Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty

9 reviews

kattyenn's review

dark reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child death, Child abuse, Drug use, Sexual assault, and Murder

jessereadsthings's review

medium-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death

Moderate: Miscarriage, Drug abuse, Sexual assault, Alcoholism, Racism, Child abuse, and Rape

tigger89's review

dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

4.0

This collection is the darkest book I've read in quite some time. Themes of addiction and depression are present in most of the stories, with occasional dips into even darker territory. In addition to suggesting content warnings in general, I want to mention that cigarettes in particular are prominent. That said, (what I believe to be) the chronologically penultimate story as well as the final story have elements of hope to them, so the picture isn't entirely bleak.

Once I figured out what was going on, the non-chronological storytelling choice was genius. It takes a bit of puzzling out, but the reading experience is greatly enhanced by having to figure out where you are in time, what are the characters up to, wait a minute Paige isn't here because why? What happened!? You'll find out after several more stories, when the narrative finally gets around to it. It sounds frustrating, but due to the brevity of the stories(and the collection as a whole - it clocks in under 300 pages) it didn't bother me, because I knew I'd find out soon.

The characters featured in these stories are vividly real, but deeply flawed, individuals who make bad choices, repeatedly. Regardless, I found myself caring for them, even as I was so incredibly frustrated with their actions. This might not be everyone's cup of tea, so be aware going in that these characters are made of flaws, and it's not necessarily something that ever gets set right.

It's interesting to me that, after reading some other people's thoughts, I saw that wasn't the only one who was mistaken about the content of this collection when I picked it up. I believe it's a combination of the cover design, the title, and the way the stories were teased on the back cover, but it's funny to me that there's such a misconception that this collection features horror stories. It doesn't. On numerous occasions you may (or should) briefly be horrified, but the focus of these stories is not to evoke any kind of sustained horror. Rather, it's slice of life about family, poverty, trauma, loss, and ultimately, choosing to live.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Dementia, Child death, Addiction, Alcohol, Vomit, Drug use, Miscarriage, Rape, Suicide attempt, and Child abuse

Moderate: Infertility and Pregnancy

Minor: Car accident and Blood

readingwithkaitlyn's review

dark emotional reflective sad fast-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Miscarriage, Murder, Mental illness, Ableism, Drug use, Grief, Chronic illness, Racism, Death, Pedophilia, Domestic abuse, Animal death, Child abuse, and Body shaming

Moderate: Car accident and Infidelity

Minor: Child death and Rape

Neglect, fraud, MMIWG2S, drowning, intergenerational trauma, baby addicted to methodone, postpartum depression,

mscalls's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Colonisation, Toxic relationship, Death, Drug use, Pregnancy, Toxic friendship, Violence, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Cursing, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Grief, Medical content, Drug abuse, Racism, Vomit, Addiction, and Child death

ukponge's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Drug use, Child death, Child abuse, and Drug abuse

sarah984's review

dark funny reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.0

This is a collection of short stories about incidents in the life of one character on a reservation in Maine throughout his life. Some of the stories were better than others (the stories about the friends messing around kind of blended together for me, but the titular story was incredible) and they're told out of chronological order for a reason I couldn't really grasp aside from putting the best story at the end.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child death, Alcohol, Drug use, Grief, and Vomit

Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Dementia, Medical content, Mental illness, and Racism

Minor: Animal death, Cancer, Blood, Car accident, Child abuse, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Stalking, and Toxic relationship

caseythereader's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Car accident, Drug abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Addiction, Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Grief, Infidelity, Mental illness, Abandonment, Alcohol, Colonisation, Alcoholism, Dementia, Drug use, Murder, Racism, Sexual assault, and Violence

Moderate: Fatphobia and Ableism

internationalreads's review

adventurous dark mysterious sad fast-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Addiction, Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, Car accident, Child abuse, Child death, Classism, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Vomit