Reviews tagging 'Gore'

River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer

3 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

micaelamariem's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective tense 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

3.0

From a perspective that helps one see the different culture and understand the brutal history of slavery in the Caribbean, this book is great. It really tugs at the heartstrings as you follow a mother who escapes slavery to search for her sold children. The descriptions of the landscapes are also great. However, when it came to the characters, I found them, apart from Rachel, a bit one-dimensional and like their descriptions were more “telling” than “showing.” I also was frustrated that Rachel didn’t start her quest until about 100 pages in of a 300 page book—the slow beginning made me less inclined to really immerse myself into the story. Overall it was good, but I think it could’ve been better. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Colonisation, Death, Blood, Violence, Grief, Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Bullying, Gore, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, and Alcohol

greatlibraryofalexandra's review

dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad medium-paced

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

4.0

I valued this story a lot. The books about slavery I read are usually focused on the US, so it was good to expand my horizons here and read about the Caribbean. The writing was truly beautiful, quiet and painful. It reminded me of "Homegoing" (Gyasi) and "Roots" (Haley), though I will say I enjoyed both of those books more. I loved Rachel's determination, her journey, and her reflections on suffering one chooses and how it emboldens you, versus the suffering one is subjected to and how it wears you down. I also really valued the examination of what "freedom" really means, in both a legal sense and a larger, more ideological sense. I think we're still examining this question every day. 

It feels very wrong to call a book this full of trauma and suffering "serendipitous," but to me it was at least a bit too serendipitous in that Rachel was able to either find out find out what happened to all of her children, despite hopping between islands of thousands of people. It relied a little too much on convenience and while I don't think it was necessarily a happy story or a happy ending, it was a farfetched to me that she was able to have so much closure - even if it was also a peaceful thing to read.

 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Blood, Body horror, Colonisation, Classism, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Miscarriage, Murder, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, and Vomit