Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Shutter by Ramona Emerson

17 reviews

careinthelibrary's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes

4.0

I really enjoyed this! Fast-paced but also lots of reminisces of the character's past. Lots of mystery and excitement and tension. It kept me occupied and invested to the end. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Chronic illness, Gore, Gun violence, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, and Death of parent

Minor: Pregnancy

jhbandcats's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense 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? Yes

4.5

This is an exceptionally gory and gritty mystery narrated by a Navajo crime scene photographer who converses with the ghosts of the dead. She has seen ghosts her whole life but now they pester her incessantly to solve their murders. 

Outside of the violence, it’s a beautiful portrayal of Navajo connections between family and friends, describing the community, history, and culture. We see the insular life on the reservation and the casual discrimination of the cities. 

Rita is a sympathetic character, plagued by the ghosts, struggling to find a balance between staying with her beloved grandma on the reservation and the necessary work she does in Albuquerque. 

Two very small quibbles: I wasn’t convinced that she’d have that much influence as a civilian working for the police, and I found Erma’s aggression extreme. But I’ve never seen ghosts so I don’t really know what I’m talking about. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Bullying, Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Misogyny, Racism, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Police brutality, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Abandonment, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

winifara's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death and Death

Moderate: Death of parent

Minor: Animal death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Dementia, Kidnapping, Grief, Car accident, Murder, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

jemau11's review

dark sad fast-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? It's complicated

4.0

The depiction of Navajo culture and particularly how the Navajo see death was so interesting, and Rita was a complex and likable character. There are parts of the book that are hard to read, especially the scene in the judge’s house, but it’s necessary to understand what Rita’s job is really like. Definitely one of those where you should take the content warnings seriously, though. 4 stars because I didn’t like the way things wrapped up.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Child death, Grief, and Death of parent

Minor: Animal death, Sexual content, and Police brutality

leweylibrary's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

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

1.5

It only gets points for the kind of fun setting and indigenous rep, sorry 🤷‍♀️ otherwise I kinda hated it lol.

I did not enjoy reading it, I had to force myself to finish it for a book club, and I had sooo many issues with it that completely took me out of the story. Like her awful friends wtf??? They were horrible and I really hope they weren't inspired by the author's real friends lol. What kind of friends automatically ask if you've murdered someone or destroyed your own apartment?? I wanted to like the supernatural element, and it was one of the few things keeping me interested, but there could've been so much more done with it. I felt like a lot of the conversations, situations, and relationships just made no sense. I truly don't know how this was long listed for the National Book Prize. Like how.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Terminal illness, Blood, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, and Abandonment

Moderate: Drug use, Racism, and Colonisation

Minor: Pedophilia, Medical content, and Sexual harassment

zias's review

dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.75

I enjoyed reading this book. I felt the pacing was enough to keep me interested and I loved reading about the cultural inclusion with the main character being a Navajo woman. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Gore, Blood, Grief, and Murder

Minor: Gun violence and Suicide

m3l3fic3nt's review

adventurous dark emotional 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? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Grief

cemetereality's review against another edition

dark funny informative reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.75

Every moment spent between Rita and her Grandmother are so deeply moving that you can put aside how rushed the other portions are. The details of the crime scenes and original story start off so clear and compelling. It gets jumbled and we end without feeling finished or getting answers. I highly recommend reading Shutter, because the moments of familial joy and pain are palpable. It’s a beautiful and moving story

the moments with her grandfather’s ghost radiating warm light around her room… I could cry thinking about their relationship. Rita and her grandmother going through the trunk of painful memories was heartbreaking, but also a beautiful moment of understanding between them.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Racism, Forced institutionalization, Grief, and Abandonment

cait808's review

dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

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

3.5

my mom picked this as our first family book club read! twas short and sweet and tasty, with a few things that disappointed me. 

Rita is a sendup to haggard, perpetually tired girlies everywhere, and her commitment to doing the right thing is admirable. Every time she propitiated the phantoms in a long-suffering tone, I liked our everywoman heroine more, and the descriptions of her actual family and the family she found outside the reservation warmed my heart. I fw the final line of the book v much and it feels like a love letter to both the kind of child Rita was and the woman Rita has become. 

I am tepid about the chapter shift between past and present day. Once it was used to great effect—a question coming up in a present chapter was immediately answered by the following past chapter—but otherwise I kind of felt like it was relying on cliffhangers to get me to keep reading. 

Also as an aside, I wish I knew more about cameras—each chapter has a subscript of a make/model of a camera of importance to the focal point (hehe) of the chapter. The climactic chapters are simply labelled with an f-stop setting indicating an ever-widening aperture, ending in “wide open.” Neat! 

I felt the ending was very rushed. The book needed more chapters to flesh out SEVERAL interesting character skeletons; but unfortunately we are left with:

- Garcia, who

is a mustache-twirling villain with barely a motive beyond “greed” and “impatience” driving this maelstrom of events serendipitously happening right as Rita is at her tiredest. (I hate how two of the most plot-impactful moments were just… chance encounters? ie the party, the wake.)

- Armenta, who

barely serves a purpose beyond an exposition dump, when he deserves so much more (his old partner used dirty money to buy a cabin for his wife who has already forgotten who he is, and is living in fear? resignation? of his own death by the hands of the cartel or his partner, who knows which? what a crazy emotional millieu).

- Erma! Would’ve loved more

flashbacks or dream sequences or investigations highlighting Erma’s force of will and relationships to Mathias and her family (cannot forgive that wake scene with Erma seeing her mom and daughter being cut short, acab baby).

- Always need more on Shanice—

what did that reunion look like? how have the two found each other again? has Rita come to see Shanice as her own person or is she yet another foil for Gloria? for the mom she never really had?

no notes on Grandma though. now THAT’S what I call a grandma. the idyllic yet grounded description of

a day with grandma picking, drying, and brewing tea? one of my fav chapters fr. 🤌🏼🤌🏼

(just a day after, I watched the MV for the sigur ros song HOPPÍPOLA and had a nice good cry) 

Solid book overall, would def read from this author again, especially bc of how she writes both old people and body parts strewn across an Albuquerque highway with such care.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Gore

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, and Abandonment

eicart_reads's review against another edition

challenging mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child death, Racism, Grief, Car accident, and Colonisation

Minor: Animal death, Bullying, Drug use, Terminal illness, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury