Reviews with content warning for Racism - Night of the Living Rez

Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty

32 reviews

whathillarygraceread's review against another edition

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? It's complicated

5.0

I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect going into this book. I generally go into books fairly blind, but I had heard an interview with Talty, who is a Penobscot citizen, and looked at quite a few reviews before my hold came up at the library and people seemed to have a LOT of opinions about this collection of short stories. I LOVED it. The stories depict life on the Penobscot reservation in Maine. I don’t read a ton of short story collections and I’m always pleasantly surprised when an author creates a through line in compilations like this (I don’t want to name it because I don’t want to spoil it because it’s not readily apparent until about three stories in). While the Goodreads and Storygraph reviews are mixed, don’t let any of those reviews scare you away from this book. It is SO good. Talty’s writing is so beautiful and I was sad when I finished this. I didn’t realize until I reached the end that many of these stories have been published elsewhere, so it’s possible that many are already familiar with his work. I am eagerly awaiting whatever Talty does next.

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catapocalypse's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

First I'd like to point out that this collection is mostly literary fiction rather than the horror many assume. There are scattered moments of haunting or dread, but it only seemed prominent in the last couple stories.

Mostly, these are interconnected stories narrated by the same man at various points of his life on the Penobscot Reservation. They focus on the complex connections he has with his family and friends, and frequently involve themes of sickness and healing as well. There's pain and heartbreak, but also compassion, and so much great humor throughout. The writing is beautifully crafted, and the characters so vividly real, I feel as though I'll miss them now that I've finished reading, mess and all.

This is one of my favorite reads of this year. I look forward to the novel Talty's working on now!

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sdupont's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad 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

3.75

This book packs some heavy material. The short stories are all interconnected as they have the same characters across different time points (though not written in sequential order). I usually struggle to get into short story compilations and that was true for this book as well especially with the heavier content. I wish the stories were a little more separate content/character wise or that the book was written as a continuous novel. That being said the characters have a lot of depth and I found myself wanting to see what would happen next. I still would recommend giving this a read though!

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_belty_'s review against another edition

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dark emotional funny reflective 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

4.0

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annemaries_shelves's review against another edition

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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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suzyreadsbooks's review against another edition

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Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.0

I don’t think I’ve ever read a short story collection that was as interconnected as Night of the Living Rez, with each story centering around the same Penobscot family, with the same narrator. We see many dark moments in their lives, but I also felt a lot of hope and love for these characters and their relationships as more of their stories are revealed.
I think this could be a good entry point to short stories for someone who prefers the character development of a novel.

Gifted audio from Libro.fm - I enjoyed the narration and felt each of the characters’ voices were clear.

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sarah984's review against another edition

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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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