Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty

23 reviews

rnorthie's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad slow-paced

4.0

This is a hard book to rate. The writing was beautiful and I loved the challenge of piecing the stories together and the last 2 stories were amazing (in a sad tragic way). I think in general some of the stories weren’t my favorite but it didn’t take away from the intrigue they slowly built up to the last two stories. Definitely worth a read.

Check content warnings!

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse

Moderate: Gaslighting, Terminal illness, Vomit, Grief, Death, Pregnancy, Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, Chronic illness, Child death, Blood, Car accident, and Abandonment

Minor: Sexual assault

lizzie24601's review

medium-paced

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

2.0

Some of the stories about David as a child are good (especially the two about Paige's pregnancies), but overall nothing very exciting.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Alcohol, Drug use, Addiction, Drug abuse, Sexual violence, Alcoholism, Dementia, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Miscarriage, Violence, and Grief

Minor: Car accident, Death of parent, Blood, Racial slurs, Excrement, and Injury/Injury detail

nrogers_1030's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective 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

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Drug abuse, Alcoholism, Mental illness, Addiction, Alcohol, Colonisation, Cursing, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Dementia, Sexual assault, Miscarriage, Violence, and Racial slurs

Minor: Child death

ohnoitscoco's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Miscarriage, Addiction, Child death, Drug abuse, Car accident, Alcoholism, Mental illness, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Gaslighting, Abandonment, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Pregnancy, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Death and Grief

nicoleisalwaysreading's review

challenging dark emotional funny informative mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• 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

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Drug abuse, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Alcoholism, and Racism

seyfert's review

challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad tense

• 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

4.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Addiction, and Alcoholism

Moderate: Grief, Miscarriage, and Child death

Minor: Mental illness, Violence, Bullying, Physical abuse, and Vomit

anahisa's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

THE HITS KEPT COMING AND THEY NEVER STOPPED. 

A reading experience that made me feel both haunted + hunted! Love how Talty subverts horror tropes in these stories. I’m finding myself at a loss for words because it’s such an incredibly raw narrative it feels wrong to talk about in passing. While I highly recommend picking this one up, advise the trigger warnings!! 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cursing, Rape, Violence, Vomit, Dementia, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Murder, Child death, Grief, Addiction, Alcoholism, Car accident, Death, Infertility, and Sexual assault

lanid's review

adventurous dark emotional sad

• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Car accident, Drug abuse, Child death, Addiction, Alcohol, Grief, Mental illness, Sexual assault, Death, and Miscarriage

jayisreading's review against another edition

dark emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

4.25

These interconnected stories were so raw yet tender. Focusing on friends and family, generational trauma, life on the reservation, and just the general pains of growing up, Talty explores these themes through David, who serves as a protagonist of sorts for each story. Each story has its pain and grief that the characters go through, but there’s always space to show love still exists, despite everything.

Talty is a phenomenal storyteller, tugging at your heartstrings during some moments due to heart wrenching loss, but then having you laughing at others. These stories resist glamor and comfort in favor of presenting everyday life as is, the realities of one Penobscot boy’s/man’s world. This isn’t to say that the writing is plain— Quite the contrary, Talty has a really wonderful way with words, especially when it comes to dialogue; you really get a sense of each character’s persona and beliefs from these conversations.

I think the one thing that threw me off a little was the jumping around in time, which, in turn, affected the pacing a little. In some instances, we’re looking at the world from David’s perspective as a boy. In others, he’s a young man. It was a little hard to get into the stories at times, as a result, but I will say that I don’t think I was in the right headspace to fully appreciate these stories.

Whatever the case, I’m looking forward to what more Talty has in store for his readers. This collection of short stories really packed a punch. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Drug abuse, Addiction, Alcohol, Drug use, Child death, Dementia, Alcoholism, and Death

Moderate: Miscarriage, Racism, Car accident, Vomit, and Violence

Minor: Sexual violence and Blood

kyladenae94's review

dark emotional sad fast-paced

5.0

could’ve read this in one sitting if i didn’t have to do silly things like work. every single one of these stories—all of which are about the same boy/man, swinging back & forth through his life to spread out the many experiences we see through his eyes—was absolutely heartbreaking. did i identify with the child who takes on more responsibility than they’re ready for in order to make the people around them happy and ease burdens even though, again, they’re an actual child & probably aren’t ready for that and then eventually it all starts to fall apart & they’re not really sure how to put it together so they just sort of blunder around & hope it works out

i mean. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Vomit, Addiction, Child death, Drug use, Grief, and Mental illness

Moderate: Sexual assault