Reviews tagging 'Rape'

Dirt Creek by Hayley Scrivenor

19 reviews

geraldine's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Was originally going to rate this a 3.5 but after thinking about it in the car AND half writing this review I think a 3 is more fair.

i did genuinely like a lot of it! i thought all the different character perspectives worked really well, even the "we" perspective. i thought all the characters and their reactions felt very real, especially constance, hers was the most harrowing and affecting to me. the voice of the book just really worked for me and i was engaged the whole time

however,

look. i said all the characters and reactions felt real, and i did mean that. and with that said i hated sarah. she was well written and felt like a real person i could meet! and i hated her. her and her cop buddy manipulating their suspects in order to arrest them, getting mad when people wouldn't talk to them without lawyers or without a warrant, misrepresenting the confidence of DNA evidence... really gross stuff.

i mean, to an extent i do think you're supposed to recognize that they're flawed individuals just like the rest of the cast, like... it's not like constance is perfect and the book knows that and expects you to realize that as well. but with sarah... she talks about how her exes (or women she expressed interest in that didn't go farther!) all hated that she was a cop and how her ex tried to get her to pull away from it, and she just dug in further and viewed it as an intrinsic part of herself.

plus the whole segment with her and amira's breakup and domestic violence... you can't remove this from the statistics that cops are much more likely than the general population to abuse their spouses/partners. when sarah was thinking "what if she tells my superiors" this was all i could think about! and it IS domestic violence even if it isn't in the same way that lewis's father terrorizes his family. 

i also felt comparing sarah hurting amira with shel's drunk driving and esther's subsequent death rang false and left a bad taste in my mouth. i get the message of "sometimes tragic accidents happen when you make an emotional mistake" and how this can change the course of your life, but comparing "sarah getting mad that amira doesn't like that she's a cop, and then shoving her into a nightstand and hurting her" and "shel being triggered by seeing someone involved in her horrific trauma, a friend calling her a liar about it, drinking and then accidentally killing someone with her car" are apples and oranges. sarah wanted to shove amira out of anger. shel didn't want to kill a child. like yes i don't think sarah wanted amira to hit the nightstand and actually get physically hurt, but she did consciously choose to put her hands on her?? i mean i suppose you could make an argument about drunk driving, about it being always dangerous (and you would be right), but it's not a pointed, directed choice against a single person. i'm not even really arguing about either circumstance being in the book but the book directly calling a comparison between them feels so nasty to me.


thestorygraph only note: i do wish i had a better book club so we could actually discuss a book like this. i think there's a lot to discuss!!

the three stars really are for everything else not in my spoiler section. i really genuinely liked the rest, the story, the writing style, the characters...!


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jbt1234's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

It feels weird to be reviewing a book written by a woman who personally taught me a bunch of what I know about writing. I was lucky enough to be one of Hayley Scrivenor's many students at the University of Wollongong (whether she remembers me or not!), taught by all of the same people who taught her.

I was so excited to see this name on the bookshelf, and I grabbed it immediately! But what I also learned at UOW, particularly from one Shady Cosgrove, is that criticism only makes us stronger writers, so here it goes!

Interestingly enough, I found this book really shone after the mystery was done, in the last 15% we see the impact of all these events on all these characters. How they've changed, how they've learned or tried to escape. It might be that contemporary mystery isn't my usual genre of choice, but something about the narrative itself lacked a certain quality to make it super gripping in the lead up to the emotional resolution. I was invested in the people more than the story.

The way Dirt Town is written is unique and captivating, with beautiful Australian metaphor and imagery and a snapshot of the child psyche that's hard to pull off. The alternation between First Person, Third Person, and Collective pronouns was unique, if a little jarring at first. It felt like a late-night crime special on TV, told from Ronnie's perspective, and I quite enjoyed that once I got used to it.

I don't want it to seem like I think the plot was boring, or banal, it just wasn't quite as gripping as I think I was expecting a mystery to be. The beauty of this book lies in its characters, the machinations of a small Australian town, and the impact one missing little girl can have on a community.

I'm extremely proud to have learned from the author of this wonderful work, and I hope to see more from Hayley soon!

PS: A lot of my TBR at the moment is queer literature, and I really expected this to be a break. I was wrong, and this book has wonderful, contemporary, normalised queer representation and it was a wonderful surprise.

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hknox's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

I didn’t realize the author was Australian until a few chapters in, which then made more sense considering the vocabulary used.

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lara_alicia's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-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

4.75


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samsearle's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75


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dckathleen's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

A little girl disappears in a rural Australian town. The story is told from various pov. It's a mystery and a reflection on relationships and small town life, on keeping secrets, and how kids experience things. It was sad but good.

Definitely some trigger warnings to consider here. 

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darceyb_5's review against another edition

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mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5


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matildaesandell's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I truly love an Australian Crime/Mystery fiction novel. This was so great. If you love Christian White or Jane Harper, you’ll love Hayley Scrivenor too. This book kept you wanting to read more, digging for more information. I found some parts a little slow and boring, including the end, although the ending is what set this apart from other crime/mystery books. Most crime/mystery books stop once it’s been solved, but this one showed us all of the main characters future. 

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madluck's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5


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serendipitysbooks's review

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

4.0

 Dirt Creek is set in a small Australian town and is centred around the disappearance of twelve year old Esther who never makes it home from school one day. It unfolds via multiple points of view including a couple of her friends, her mother, a detective sergeant in charge of the investigation, and a Greek chorus representing the local children. I found this to be a propulsive read with the twists and foreshadowing at the end of chapters enticing me to continue reading, even though I already knew Esther’s fate, since it was revealed in the first chapter. The fact that many local secrets were revealed over the course of the investigation kept my interest high as well. The small town vibe felt very realistic. Socially it reflected my experiences growing up in a small town, and physically I felt transported to rural Australia with the heat, dust and wide empty roads. Not all authors get children right but I felt the depiction of Ronnie and Lewis, their reactions and understanding were spot on. Like Lewis I have an intellectually disabled sibling and that aspect of the book was handled sensitively, yet still felt fully authentic. This was not a faced paced, tense, dramatic, gore-ridden mystery/thriller that will get your heart racing. It was slower paced, focussed very much on character and community and I liked it all the more for that. 

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