Reviews with content warning for Miscarriage - The Revisioners

Reviews tagging 'Miscarriage'

The Revisioners by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

9 reviews

rebecca__m's review

medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.0

I am currently in the process of reading another book by authors I have given two stars. This book was an ideal candidate because it was short, had some likable characters, and had an intriguing plot.

After finishing the first "chapter" I was feeling pretty optimistic. I liked Ava and her family, and the plot was intriguing enough to make me want to keep reading. By the time I finished "chapter 2" I was still feeling optimistic, albeit a bit less. I didn't dislike Josephine or where her story was going, I just wasn't as intrigued as I had been with Ava's story. Also, I felt like Josephine could come off as a bit arrogant and rude. She kind of reminded me of the way Mary McLeod Bethune was portrayed in The First Ladies by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray.

Things I liked:
+ I appreciated the three different timelines (Josephine's story was split into two timelines) were easy to keep track of.
+ The author did a good job depicting slavery and racism in a way that expressed the brutality of the two topics but was not overly gruesome.
+ I'm not sure if this was the author's intent, but there were definitely some sentences that I read that I interpreted as a subtle reminder that racism can go both ways.
+ I thought that the author did an amazing job wrapping everything up in the end.

Overall I enjoyed this book, but in the future, I think I will listen to this author on audio since there were some moments I found myself skiming. (I think that this book would translate really well to audio, if you are somebody who prefers audiobooks.)

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bt_wannabe's review

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mysterious medium-paced

3.5

A mix of historical fiction and contemporary fiction with some supernatural elements, this story weaves together the stories of multiple generations; highlighting the impact of both generational trauma and strength. The use of multiple POVs was an effective tool in telling this story. While I do think there are characters and storylines that could’ve been fleshed out a bit better to make this read more rich and satisfying, I also feel that some connections were intentionally not explicitly laid out in order to make the reader think and reflect. Overall, it’s definitely worth your time and will leave you thinking.

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beetandbaguette's review

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medium-paced

4.75

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javafenn's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious 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

3.5

It took me a few days to write a review because this book was very emotional and I needed to clarify my thoughts. The story is told from 3 different timelines involving 2 different women basically sewing together how the past affects the future generations. The realities of slavery and post slavery was tough but the horrors of slavery and all the racism that followed are real and tough. The story itself was amazing. I enjoyed the magical aspect of it and I really loved how strong Josephine and Ava truly were despite not exactly knowing it at first. Both had sons that were facing a scary world for Black men and both had passions for healing. At the end of the book Josephine suffers a horrific and graphic loss shortly after gaining a new grandchild. I needed a few minutes to continue on from that point because there wasn’t much left in the book. I was shattered when it happened. I almost felt it was unnecessary but things like that happened and I’m not one to say how racism against Black people should be displayed in a book written by a Black person. That combined with the fact that the story got a bit confusing around 2/3 of the way through is why this is 3.5 stars. It’s definitely a good book and the narrators are great but it is heavy.

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technicallyaly's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective 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? Yes

3.5

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melissathejan's review

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emotional hopeful tense 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? Yes

4.0

"I walk her to the fields her grandfather laid out, point out the potatoes, the tomatoes, the corn.
'You look at it from this angle and life is all the way good, baby girl,' I tell her. 'You look at it from this angle and you can have anything your little heart can dream up. Anything,' I repeat, and the lie trips in my throat, but I repeat it anyway because maybe for her it will be true. Doesn't make it any less true because I said it." (260-261)

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surefinewhatever_'s review

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challenging dark emotional 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

5.0

A book hasn’t made me feel this way in a long time. I completely sobbed through the final few chapters. Wow wow wow, what a beautifully woven story. Excellent storytelling, and the sense of foreboding made this book impossible to put down. So so good.

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znvisser's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative medium-paced

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

3.0

It took me a while to get up to speed with the three different timelines and all the people in those, I would say I was already a third in by the time that happened. After that, I enjoyed most of the story, even though the characters were sometimes a bit grumpy and judgy towards others without it being properly shown why. And that obviously doesn't refer to Josephines wariness towards white people, but for example, it did apply to Ava towards her mother. This could have been interesting, were it properly explored, but unfortunately it wasn't. The ending tempered my positive feelings for the story that had actually started to grow: two of the stories came to a climax that seemed only included in order to shock the reader, since it wrapped up immediately and lacked any reflection on those events. And the third story extinguished by focusing on the wrong things. Therefore, I didn't feel the reader was given any closure for the story and its characters. So all in all, an ok read, but for me there were too many things off for it to be more than that.

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thatsssorachael's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

2.0

I did not like this book. The synopsis was misleading, nothing happens for over half the book, and I couldn't bring myself to care about the characters. I felt so indifferent, despite this being a book I was very excited to read. I can't say I would recommend this to anyone. Very disappointing, and maybe it was just her publisher did her wrong by writing a terrible synopsis, or maybe this book just isn't that good. Either way, I'm glad it's over.

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