Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer

11 reviews

kimveach's review

adventurous dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.5

I wanted to like this book so much more than I actually did. It should have been a powerful tale of love, hope, loss, and joy. Yet, I didn't feel most of these things while reading it. If anything, I kept feeling that the emotions were told from a great distance.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Colonisation, Death, Blood, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Child death, Dysphoria, Gore, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Murder, Racial slurs, Classism, Death of parent, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Racism, Violence, Vomit, and Slavery

jennipea382's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Death, Grief, Rape, Sexual assault, Slavery, Child death, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, and Racism

Moderate: Misogyny, Child abuse, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Blood, Violence, Miscarriage, and Pregnancy

nightowlreader46's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense 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? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Racism, Death, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Classism, Colonisation, Genocide, Miscarriage, Violence, Child death, Slavery, Forced institutionalization, Murder, Racial slurs, and Cultural appropriation

torturedreadersdept's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful 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? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Pregnancy, Violence, Vomit, Kidnapping, Murder, Trafficking, Bullying, Child abuse, Racism, Body horror, Physical abuse, Slavery, Torture, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, Colonisation, Blood, and Death

Moderate: Miscarriage, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

brewdy_reader's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad medium-paced

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

4.5

𝘏𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘍𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 • 𝘓𝘪𝘵𝘍𝘪𝘤 • 𝘙𝘢𝘤𝘦 ⁣
𝘗𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘥 31 𝘑𝘢𝘯𝘶𝘢𝘳𝘺 2023⁣

There is no force on Earth more powerful than a mother's love. It is as big as the sky and as deep as the ocean.

It’s unimaginable to put myself into the shoes of a woman whose 5 babies were stolen & resold into slavery as children. My mama bear heart couldn't survive it. 

Emancipation — or the "what came after" slavery is the subject of this book. After being declared “free”, Mama Rachel goes on the run in order to discover the fates of her 5 adult children, to reunite her family.

Although a bit far-fetched at times, because this is fiction it worked. I appreciated the unique arcs of each of her children. I teared up several times and I wanted them to all have a happy homecoming, even though I knew that was unlikely/unrealistic. This book was both heartbreaking and also full of love, hope, courage, and determination.

It highlights the injustices of slavery, but also how post-emancipation life was not all that different than indentured servitude. How many black people were still killed by whites without repercussions. 

I would highly recommend the audio format in order to get the best reading of the accents and speech used throughout the book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Slavery, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Gun violence, Grief, Hate crime, Infertility, Kidnapping, Pregnancy, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, and Violence

silodear's review

adventurous emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Violence, Child abuse, and Slavery

Moderate: Child abuse and Child death

bedtimesandbooks's review

hopeful sad tense slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Miscarriage, Genocide, Grief, Murder, Racism, Violence, Colonisation, Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, Child abuse, Suicide, Child death, Suicidal thoughts, Pregnancy, Blood, and Physical abuse

bayleereads's review

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

Be still my heart... this was such a beautiful book. Despite the content being very heavy and depressing, it was still somewhat hopeful and inspiring. Rachel, our FMC, is a force to be reckoned with and I loved every minute of her character. Her passion for family is so inspiring and it made me think about my own family and the lengths I would go to to protect them. Each child's story was different and lovely, all in their own ways. At times it seemed as though the story was too "easy." I understand the author wanted a *mostly* happy ending, but as much as I loved the reuniting between characters, I know this was not the case in the majority of real stories of the time. I also wanted more! I feel like each child could have had at least 100 pages written about them-- 336 pages wasn't enough for me!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Violence, Murder, Racism, Child abuse, Miscarriage, and Grief

oceanwriter's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

My heart is in pieces, but I adored River Sing Me Home so much. It's a story of survival, family, discerning the meaning of freedom, and most of all, a mother's love and hope for her children.

When the so-called end of slavery comes, Rachel is quick to learn that the word has only changed to 'apprentice'. Seeing that nothing will change for her and unable to stomach the thought of another six years of confinement and brutal labor, she takes off in search of the children that were taken away from her and sold. This is no easy feat, not even sure if any of the five have survived. She doesn't let her think about this possibility too much. She is determined to reunite with them at any cost.

I loved the writing, the characters, the descriptions, and the history that went into this book. I learned a lot not having studied much about the Caribbean islands at all. It was quite slow at several moments, however, it worked well for me in this context. We get to know Rachel intimately as well as the memories of her children. I particularly loved Mary Grace and her story. While the heart of this book is about Rachel's natural-born children, this is also a story about found family. This is definitely one to take your time with and let it all sink in.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Racism, Slavery, and Grief

Moderate: Abandonment and Violence

Minor: Miscarriage and Child abuse

quiettalker's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

Rachel has spent her life in enslavement on a sugar plantation in Barbados. Though she has given birth to many children, they have all been taken away from her. Rachel lost babies to stillbirth and disease, but the five who grew into childhood were taken from her and sold to other plantations.

Although emancipation comes at the start of the book, it brings no real freedom because of the "apprenticeships" which bind all enslaved people to their enslavers for another 6 years. Faced with this reality, Rachel decides to run and soon finds herself on a journey to find freedom, which for her means collecting the stories of her stolen children.

Rachel's journey takes her from Bridgetown, to British Guiana, to Trinidad, and although it's not an "adventure story", it often felt like it followed a heroes journey arch. The result is a touching, informative, and introspective adventure about a middle-aged women taking back self-determination. Rachel and her children's experiences overlap with Indigenous Caribbean characters in a way that I found to be beautiful and informative.

There are two author's notes which really help show the research that went into the time, setting and characters, as well as the choices around language. I love this vein of historical fiction, and though I have read a lot of great books that take place on American plantations and tell the shared history of white and black Americans (A Sitting in St. James, The Sweetness of Water) this is the first I've read set in the Caribbean and it really deepened my understanding of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and emancipation.

Thank you to Penguin Random House for the ARC.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence and Abandonment

Minor: Child abuse and Miscarriage