Reviews with content warning for Rape - Perish

Reviews tagging 'Rape'

Perish by LaToya Watkins

22 reviews

grantscheppler's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.25

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bookishmillennial's review against another edition

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disclaimer: I don’t really give starred reviews. I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Find me here: https://linktr.ee/bookishmillennial

I don’t know why Grandmoan who she is, but I ain’t got to understand her. Sometimes we don’t get to understand things. People. We just got to try to be better than the things that spit us out.

This is an incredibly heavy read about generational trauma about a Black family in the south (Texas & Arkansas). The matriarch of their family is dying, and her family confronts the trauma they have put each other through. It pretty much starts off with pain, and just does not stop. It spans times from the 50s to current day, and every single family member is quietly suffering from the wounds that have been inflicted on them by others. You know the phrase “hurt people hurt people”? This book exemplifies and delivers that tenfold. 💔

I will say that it ends on a hopeful, brave note for one of the characters and her kids, as she decides they must talk to each other, and they cannot keep secrets from each other like she did with her siblings and older generations. She recognizes what kept them from healing, and she vehemently wants to break that cycle, because she wants better for her kids. She even notes that she doesn’t believe making a bad choice or harming someone makes the person who hurt her a bad person, but she just knows he is bad for her and her kids right now. That’s so gracious and compassionate of her to recognize, and more forgiving than most folks would be. It’s admirable, it’s devastating, and it’s incredibly raw.

See content warnings below and take care while reading.

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kristapeters's review against another edition

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too many awful things happening to everyone

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donnabelle's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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reading_rainbow_with_chris's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad 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? It's complicated

2.5

“Perish” by Latoya Watkins

Content Warning: Sexual Assault, Incest, Racism, Gun Violence, Allusions to Drug Use
The family matriarch of a Black Texan family is dying. Her descendents gather at her bedside, each coming for the purpose of undoing a particular knot in the family tree, untying the intergenerational trauma that goes back to the matriarchal root.

I cannot say that this novel was for me. This is a tale of intergenerational trauma, and it does reflect the compound nature of traumatic family histories. However, the novel spun from tragedy to tragedy, and the writing about the trauma was not interesting or presented in nuanced ways. Watkins elected for a direct, blunt description of the traumatic events throughout the novel, which made it hard to keep listening. Without some kind of mediating writing choice in a novel of this nature, I think it’s very easy for audiences to shut it out and not hear the important, challenging compound issues that many families, especially Black families, face.

There is an audience for this book. And these are stories that are worth being told, worth being heard. However, I think how we tell them is important and for me, “Perish” did not succeed in striking a balance between presenting trauma and triggering readers who may share these experiences.

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