Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty

20 reviews

heatherjchin's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Drug abuse, Alcoholism, Drug use, and Dementia

Moderate: Racism, Child death, Toxic friendship, and Mental illness

Minor: Miscarriage, Emotional abuse, Vomit, Toxic relationship, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Panic attacks/disorders, Confinement, Blood, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Stalking, Physical abuse, Bullying, and Death of parent

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

tigger89's review against another edition

dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

4.0

This collection is the darkest book I've read in quite some time. Themes of addiction and depression are present in most of the stories, with occasional dips into even darker territory. In addition to suggesting content warnings in general, I want to mention that cigarettes in particular are prominent. That said, (what I believe to be) the chronologically penultimate story as well as the final story have elements of hope to them, so the picture isn't entirely bleak.

Once I figured out what was going on, the non-chronological storytelling choice was genius. It takes a bit of puzzling out, but the reading experience is greatly enhanced by having to figure out where you are in time, what are the characters up to, wait a minute Paige isn't here because why? What happened!? You'll find out after several more stories, when the narrative finally gets around to it. It sounds frustrating, but due to the brevity of the stories(and the collection as a whole - it clocks in under 300 pages) it didn't bother me, because I knew I'd find out soon.

The characters featured in these stories are vividly real, but deeply flawed, individuals who make bad choices, repeatedly. Regardless, I found myself caring for them, even as I was so incredibly frustrated with their actions. This might not be everyone's cup of tea, so be aware going in that these characters are made of flaws, and it's not necessarily something that ever gets set right.

It's interesting to me that, after reading some other people's thoughts, I saw that wasn't the only one who was mistaken about the content of this collection when I picked it up. I believe it's a combination of the cover design, the title, and the way the stories were teased on the back cover, but it's funny to me that there's such a misconception that this collection features horror stories. It doesn't. On numerous occasions you may (or should) briefly be horrified, but the focus of these stories is not to evoke any kind of sustained horror. Rather, it's slice of life about family, poverty, trauma, loss, and ultimately, choosing to live.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Dementia, Child death, Addiction, Alcohol, Vomit, Drug use, Miscarriage, Rape, Suicide attempt, and Child abuse

Moderate: Infertility and Pregnancy

Minor: Car accident and Blood

just_one_more_paige's review against another edition

challenging dark 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? It's complicated

3.0

 

This recent release is one that mostly made it onto my TBR list after being offered as an ALC from Libro.fm. Once that got it on my radar, I did see a couple reviews for it pop up here and there, everything really positive, but it just seems like the proverbial publication splash it made was small. I hadn’t read a lot of short story collections this year – I mean I don’t usually read that many, but I was due for one is more the point – so I figured why not give it a try. 

In this collection, a series of vignettes of inter-related characters, the reader gets a number of glimpses into the lives of members of the Penobscot tribe, on a reservation in Maine. So many aspects are universally recognizable, addiction and drug misuse, grandparents suffering from Alzheimer’s, poverty and lack of access to quality services, money-making schemes, the made-up games of young friends, etc. And yet, each story is also presented to the reader within the unique framework of living in tribal land, the intergenerational traumas that are unique to this population, and the traditional beliefs around curses and medicine and healing of the Penobscot. 

So, everything about this work made it seem like short stories, even the subtitle is “stories,” and I understand that most of them we published separately in multiple publications before being brought together here. But I have read books advertised as novels that are less connected than this. It took me a bit to catch on, but the MC in every story was the same, just his age (and what people nicknamed him) changed. That being said, this is a number of vignettes without a specific plot-unfolding, I guess, and yet they build to a final two chapters that, as the “before” and “after” of the previous stories converge, give us both a “what happened to delineate the before from the after” and a “looking back from a far future perspective” that really do wrap things up with a fairly traditional denouement. All that to say, the structure and presentation was slightly different than anticipated, and I will be giving a normal “altogether” review, as opposed to blurbs about each individual story like I normally do for collections. 

Because these are vignette-style, they are able to give really impactful snapshot insights to different relationships or interactions or moments, that highlight the key aspects of these characters and their identities, without the pressure of having to overly connect them to each other. This allows each chapter/story to be particularly striking, ether emotionally or in observation, and makes the overall impact of the book that much greater. Included in these topics of great impact are: addiction and mental health/illness (in general and specifically related to the experience as a indigenous person), the way the youth see and interpret said struggles with mental health, the varieties of casual violence of life on/off/adjacent to the reservation, the way that getting older makes you view and understand your parents in such different ways, the specific tragedy of memory loss/Alzheimer’s, the choices related to how and with who we spend our time, trauma of all varieties (inherited, experienced, observed), and more. 

Talty also really delves into the complexities of pride in your heritage and who you are, juxtaposed with a world that contradicts that with messages of your worthlessness constantly, and how one deals with that. It really comes as no surprise that mental illness and addiction as a result. There are many forms of addiction/substance misuse represented, but in particular, the role of smoking/cigarettes in everything - all interactions and relationships and daily life - it’s was repeated to a point of literary excess. Other than (obviously) being a baseline daily reality, I felt sure that it meant something more (in context, as a metaphor, etc.), but I am not sure I could ever get a handle on what it might be. It just felt like…more. IN addition, there is a great and consistent juxtaposition of contemporary life and traditional beliefs, some touching and poignant, some demoralizing/upsetting, and some just observational, but all crafted with a deft hand. 

Lastly, I want to address this being categorized as horror. The reference/implication of the title definitely makes that feel stronger than it actually comes across on page. There are a few creepy sort of moments, with the curse in a jar and dead caterpillars sections, and I guess you could argue the pugwagees mythology (one of my favorite little sections to read – I love cultural fantasy/mythology) in the titular story quality as a sort of “story told to scare kids” situation, but for someone as big a scaredy-cat as me….it felt pretty chill on the horror front. I will say, the ending (final story) came as a (big!) surprise to me (cw: child death), and I guess after that I could see how it might tilt the overall collection over into horror.  

There was a deep, smoldering sort of feel to this collection, a banked – never extinguished but never with enough time/energy to bring it to full flame – sort of anger at the inevitability David’s life. I actually wished, as this was presented as a story collection, that we had a chance to get a few other perspectives, particularly those of David’s mother and sister, or his grandmother, or his friend Fellis’ mother. And this feeling only grew as we read the last story and find out what the major/defining event in David’s young life was – based on what happened, and how David’s family chose to handle it, I would really have appreciated more from the (older than David) female characters. Other than that, the deep ring of truth within each of these stories, and nuance of the characters, and the lovely writing of it all, was very high quality. 

 

“…I sensed that even though their problems were their own, there was no escaping how these problems shaped us all, no escaping the end, like the way the ice melts in the river each spring, overflowing and and creeping up the grassy banks and over lawns, reaching farther and farther towards the houses until finally the water touched stone, a gentleness before the river converged on the foundation, seeping inside and flooding basements, insulation swelling, drying only when the water has receded.” 

 

“I wonder if How’d we get here? is the wrong question. Maybe the right question is How do we get out of here? Maybe that's the only question that matters.” 

 

“Maybe even wishing I was a winooch and didn't live on a reservation whose history was in a little museum and could be stolen for a buck. Didn't make any sense that parts of us were worth so much and at the same time we were worth so little.” 

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Chronic illness, Drug abuse, Grief, Racism, Alcohol, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Sexual assault, Death, Cursing, Addiction, Drug use, and Pregnancy

mcc004's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense slow-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Drug use, Grief, Dementia, Drug abuse, Death, Child death, Miscarriage, Vomit, Toxic friendship, Infertility, and Addiction

Moderate: Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Pregnancy

mscalls's review against another edition

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

sarah984's review against another edition

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

marywahlmeierbracciano's review against another edition

challenging funny sad medium-paced

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

5.0

Morgan Talty’s debut collection is enchanting, with stories that follow the same people and the same places amidst shifts in role and experience along a nonlinear timeline.  On a Penobscot reservation, a young boy gradually grows up, his perspective countered in other stories by that of himself in early adulthood.  Talty’s stories are made of connection and play, survival and addiction, softness, danger.  They explore that which is inherited, that which is inevitable, that which can be changed, that which cannot.  They are often humorous and often sad, and they are brimming with life.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse and Addiction

Moderate: Racism, Pregnancy, Grief, Dementia, Death, Child death, Car accident, Alcoholism, Violence, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Death of parent, Blood, Alcohol, and Miscarriage

Minor: Animal death, Sexual violence, Pedophilia, and Vomit