Reviews with content warning for Medical trauma - The Unfortunates

Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

The Unfortunates by J.K. Chukwu

7 reviews

stellahadz's review

dark sad 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? Yes

4.25

It feels wrong to say I enjoyed this book -- it's an unflinchingly sad story of a young woman's struggles with her mental health. I will say it's a brilliant book, though. The writing is sharp and vivid, and I loved the mixed-media format. The narrative is interspersed with pages from a zine created by Sahara's aunt, stage directions, and chapter names that reference popular songs. Based on the description, I thought the book would be more of a mystery about the titular Unfortunates, Black women classmates of Sahara's who have disappeared or died, but ultimately it was more of an exploration of Sahara's own mental space and how she learns the value of care. It has a similar vibe to books like My Year of Rest and Relaxation, but The Unfortunates is definitely more self-aware (and better, in my personal opinion -- and I say that as someone who likes R&R!) J. K. Chukwu is so talented, and I look forward to reading more of her work. I absolutely recommend this book, but I'd advise checking the content warnings.

Content Warnings

dominmuenster's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense

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

5.0

Content Warnings

abbie_'s review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

4.0

Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for my free digital ARC in exchange for a review!

Boy oh boy was this book an emotional rollercoaster! I need to preface this by saying that I highly recommend it but if you are currently struggling with depression and/or self-harm, please take care of yourself if you read it!

The Unfortunates is told in the style of a thesis written by Sahara, a queer, half-Black half-Nigerian sophomore who is in the grips of debilitating depression. As well as her depression, Life Partner or LP as she refers to it, Sahara is also grappling with all of the exhaustion that comes from being a young Black woman in an Ivy League college entrenched in institutionalised racism. Other Black students are ‘graduating early’ at an alarming rate, driven to suicide, dropping out, or failed by the medical professionals supposedly charged with their care. Courtney @busyblackbookworm put it perfectly in her review - the racism Chukwu exhibits in her book is not explicit, but rather the focus is on the everyday micro-aggressions and ignorance prevalent at mostly-white institutions. Slowly but surely, this form pervasive racism wears down the Black students (and other students of colour, as briefly explored with Sahara’s best friend, but the chief focus is on Black students), forcing them to drastic, devastating measures.

Chukwu does an incredible job of showing the oppressive reality of being a Black depressed woman in a mostly white sphere. At one point Sahara despairs over how to explain to her parents ‘why [she is] incapable of simply learning for four years’. When in reality there’s nothing simple at all when your depression is making existing seem like an impossible task, coupled with fighting back against an institution that is doing its very best to erase Black students.

There is some also humour through the despair, as well as intriguing zine illustrations which I mostly felt too dense to ‘get’. Overall a candid & challenging read and I look forward to what’s next from debut author J.K. Chukwu!

Content Warnings

homodyne_reads's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I am having trouble rating this book effectively, because it is so far out of my comfort zone. I am glad that I read it and pushed myself to engage with the discomfort. I'm also relieved that I finished it.

I loved the structure of addressing the thesis committee, and chapters being interspersed with Zine pages. It felt very real and unflinching. It was bitingly funny, and thoughtful. I really appreciate the ways it played with formatting.

This was a also a really difficult read. I could not tell from the book sleeve that this was going to be a story centered on suicidial ideation, self harm, and disordered eating. In addition to, and fueled by, horrific racism (this I was expecting going in). Its a very painful book to read. I think its important to engage with that, even though I know that this book was not really for me.

Well done, sickening, but finally a bit hopeful at the end.

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thepermageek's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful sad fast-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

A really poignant debut novel exploring the negative impact that living in a society utterly shot through with anti-Black racism, misogyny, and heterosexism can have on the mental health of Black queer women. Chukwu does a masterful job, through the first-person POV of the protagonist, at capturing the inner life of someone who has lived with depression and suicidality their entire lives.

To be honest, I think this book would have been too much for me to handle when I was at the absolute depths of my own despair. But now that I'm in a (relatively) mentally healthy/stable period in my life this book was an absolute delight!

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lettuce_read's review against another edition

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Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

annreadsabook's review

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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

It’s no secret that racism—and, specifically, anti-Blackness—continues to run rampant in academic spaces. The very buildings sitting on the campuses of many U.S. institutions of higher education were built by enslaved people, many of whose descendants still struggle to gain access to those same schools today. Even if not built by enslaved people, many schools maintain monuments and plaques dedicated to historical figures who enslaved human beings or were pivotal in legitimizing and upholding state-sanctioned human bondage. They employ faculty who spew racist and bigoted rhetoric under the guise of “academic freedom.” And, a long-standing criticism of the academy is its unwillingness to heed legitimate and continual demands to protect students and faculty of color. The Ivory Tower, with all of its brochure-ready diversity campaigns, is all too often a conveyor belt that churns out Black graduates who are burnt out, stressed, and depressed.

J.K. Chukwu’s debut novel The Unfortunates stands in this fraught space, contending with the ways in which elite academic institutions traffic in racial violence and attempt to cover up the harm through half-hearted “diversity and inclusion” campaigns. At the beginning of the novel, we’re introduced to Sahara, a queer half-Nigerian, half-African American undergraduate student at an elite university on Chicago’s South Side (sound familiar?). At the start of her sophomore year, Sahara and her friends are faced with the fact that Black students, particularly Black women, are either leaving the college or dying at an alarming rate. Time and again, Sahara and her cohort are forced to pick up the pieces after yet another classmate departs—but where does this leave the remaining students?

This book doesn’t have much of a plot—rather, it’s more of a meandering journal of the inner workings of a young Black woman’s mind. We watch as Sahara struggles to succeed academically while being plagued by her severe depression (or, as Sahara calls it, her “Life Partner” who frequently demands that Sahara take her own life), attempts to view her body as worthy of love, and navigates romantic frustrations. All this, enough in itself, unfolds against the backdrop of a school that simply shrugs at the increasing number of Black students who have “graduated early.” I was truly impressed at how well Chukwu was able to impart a deep and pervasive sense of melancholy throughout the book; Sahara flits from stumbling through parties to frantically staring at the pages of exams, fearful of what a poor grade will say about her, one of the increasingly few Black students on campus. She grapples with questions of desirability, particularly after forming a relationship with a classmate who, like Sahara, is half-Nigerian, but unlike Sahara, is half-white and thin. Sahara bounces between apathy towards her courses (which often feature draining conversations revolving around race without even mentioning race) and stressing about how she will succeed in a suffocating environment.

In a lot of conversations about racism in higher education, writers can often fall into the trap of focusing on overt racism—for example, frat bros calling Black women degrading names, or professors explicitly discouraging students of color from pursuing certain studies. I appreciated the nuance Chukwu used in exploring the slow yet inexorable psychological and emotional spiral into which Black students often descend due to institutional neglect and other-ization.

This book has the incisive, biting commentary that I loved in Elaine Hsieh Chou’s Disorientation, as well as the raw honesty surrounding mental health that I so appreciated in Chantal V. Johnson’s Post-Traumatic. Particularly, as someone who has navigated similar academic spaces while juggling mental health issues, I very much appreciated Chukwu’s willingness to provide an unflinching account of the death-by-a-thousand-cuts that academia inflicts upon Black folks. Chukwu considers the role that family can play in supporting and tearing down Black women, particularly when so much of the American dream that we chase is bound up in achieving a good education. Sahara, like so many Black women, is hesitant to share her struggles with her family because, as the oldest of three siblings and a woman, she is forced to bear the crushing weight of her parents’ expectations.

This is a book that, for personal reasons, was quite difficult to read, but at the same time, I completely devoured it because I so appreciated the visibility that this book provides for Black women struggling with depression and isolation in white academia. This book is for the Black girls who are suffocated by the cries for Black excellence, the Black girls who strive to push ourselves across the finish line no matter the cost, the Black girls who are tired of living in a world that forces us to bear the unbearable.

Chukwu has definitely gained a new fan—I’ll absolutely be reading whatever she writes next.

As a final note, if you’re able, I would recommend sticking with the print version of this book—Chukwu has incorporated footnotes and interesting visuals throughout the novel and, as such, there are some aspects of the book that might be best enjoyed in print form.

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