Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty

7 reviews

mercerhanau's review against another edition

dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

2.75

I started listenings to the audiobook on a friend’s recommendation (can't remember who?) without actually reading the back-of-book-type introduction at all. I think I went into it expecting something more supernatural/horror, which is not exactly what this book delivers (in the usual way). I set myself up for genre disappointment, so take my review with a grain of salt.

It’s a reflective set of stories, looking at slices of life from the narrator as a child, teenager, and mid/late 20s, looking back from later in life. Lots of drinking and suffering from drug addition, wanting to get clean. Depressing, occasionally funny, a LOT of scenes with varying degrees of nausea, dry heaving, and vomit. Unpleasant. But there are also scenes of tenderness that help flesh out the characters.

The title (and a couple references to zombies) encouraged me to look for what could be “horror” or the supernatural in stories that otherwise feel like a fictionalized memoir. Animal presences serve as metaphors that connect interpersonal struggles to the natural world in all its power, chaos, and… stenches.

More thoughts on real-life "horror": SPOILERS / Content Warnings

Horrors of caterpillar corpse carpets, decaying snapping turtle smell, miscarriage, child deaths, postpartum depression, having a dead twin (like a teratoma?), feeling responsible (sort of) for a sick infant’s death while still a child yourself, social services knocking incessantly at the door while home alone with one’s sister’s baby (feels like a zombie movie), dementia resurrecting ghosts/memories of long-dead relatives, witnessing physical and sexual violence, car crash, feeling disconnected from one’s body and mind in the throes of drug addition and withdrawal.

Feels like an important story to tell. Nuanced representation of a deeply interconnected Native community and family. The writing style and characters didn’t resonate with me, and that’s okay! I definitely see why other people love the book.

Cf. / Reminded me of themes in…
- Wellness, by Natan Hill:

psychologically shifting stories and guilty uncertainty about what really happened during a childhood tragedy.

- The Only Good Indians, by Stephen Graham Jones:

Indigenous perspective on spooky pregnancy stuff. The horror of nature (esp. animal-related). Losing contact with indigenous knowledge that might have helped prevent/dispel the horror.

- Every Drop Is a Man's Nightmare, by Megan Kamalei Kakimoto:

More spooky reproductive/fertility stuff, whether supernatural or just things that happen to human bodies that aren’t talked about thanks to patriarchy keeping reproduction a mysterious, taboo subject. Complex feelings about family dynamics, both tender and cruel.

- This Thing Between Us, by Gus Moreno:

curses, generational trauma, feeling haunted by lost loved ones and/or forces beyond our understanding. Losing one’s mind a lil bit. Gore. Technology running amok, sometimes in subtle ways: Grammy’s car radio turns on by itself, like the Itza (Echo Dot equivalent) in TTBU.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Addiction, Drug abuse, and Vomit

Moderate: Blood, Child death, Chronic illness, Mental illness, Dementia, Miscarriage, and Car accident

Minor: Pregnancy, Medical content, Sexual assault, Animal death, Infertility, and Racial slurs

riverestyx'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? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This is the first novel in years that has had me hanging on and needing more. I would do extra chores to just keep listening and trying to find out where the story weaves. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Dementia, Injury/Injury detail, Addiction, Alcohol, Toxic relationship, Alcoholism, Child death, Drug abuse, and Violence

Moderate: Pregnancy, Stalking, and Miscarriage

Minor: Racial slurs, Racism, Genocide, and Medical content

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

alyssasaurus's review against another edition

dark sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Car accident, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, Dementia, Excrement, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Addiction, Child death, Cursing, Abandonment, Miscarriage, Pedophilia, and Vomit

annemaries_shelves's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad 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

3.5

This is a really solid debut short story collection, however I didn't love it like I thought I would.

Part of it probably was my incorrect expectation that there would be speculative elements, when it was actually a contemporary setting (that incorporated Penobscot Nation worldviews). 

I really enjoyed actively reading the stories but found it easy to put down and I wasn't super motivated to pick it up every time. The writing was clear and strong and I think Talty will continue to improve and grow as a writer. My main issue with the collection is the sometimes confusing timeline. Because he opted to shuffle the order of stories out of linear time, it took a while to place each one when it was happening in our main character, David's, life. His character work was excellent, though, and even through limited third person persctive, I got a good sense of who each person in David's life was. I was rooting so much for David and his friends and family but things never really improved - frustrating but oftentimes realistic. 

Overall, I don't think this will be a collection that sticks with me strongly (it's been a few days and I'm already losing details) but I will definitely keep an eye out for future works by Talty. I think this will work for a lot of people though, and encourage readers to seek it out if contemporary short stories tackling the lives of Indigenous (Penobscot) families and young men is of interest. 

CW: The book came with a sticker for references to death, self-harm, and childhood trauma. I would also include on-page interrupted rape, drug use (especially prescription meds) and alcohol use, and infant death. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Drug abuse, and Alcohol

Moderate: Rape, Child death, and Death

Minor: Racial slurs, Mental illness, Medical content, Self harm, Violence, and Racism

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

taylorjayne's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Violence, Addiction, Child death, Colonisation, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Miscarriage

Moderate: Child death, Infertility, Racism, Sexual assault, Toxic friendship, Violence, and Car accident

Minor: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Vomit, Terminal illness, Racism, Racial slurs, Pregnancy, Mental illness, Medical content, Dementia, Classism, Blood, Cursing, and Animal death