Reviews tagging 'Car accident'

Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson

5 reviews

autismandniamh's review

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Cultural appropriation, Drug use, Car accident, Grief, Police brutality, Racism, Gun violence, Hate crime, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Sexual content

pkc's review against another edition

dark hopeful reflective slow-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

4.0

If I was asked to review this story around the mid way point, it probably wouldn’t have been massively favourable. In fact, I came reasonably close to DNFing but in the last 70 pages, something happened. The core of the story unveiled itself, made itself known in a really profound way that I hadn’t expected. At just over 140 pages I hadn’t expected as much depth as I got from this book. It’s a touching and haunting look at the safety (or lack thereof) of black people  amidst the persistent thrumming drumbeat of a system that is built to oppress and violate in equal turns. The second person narrative is so well considered and any reader can become engaged in the unease and feel everything that “you” are supposed to feel. I loved the protagonist and the rich storytelling was poetic, languid and sumptuous at points.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Car accident, Death, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Pregnancy, Racism, Alcohol, Blood, Hate crime, Medical trauma, Murder, Physical abuse, and Police brutality

tashtasher's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Death, Grief, Car accident, and Racism

Moderate: Classism and Police brutality

Minor: Infidelity, Drug use, and Slavery

rzh's review

emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

i really liked this: so poetic, so rich, so evocative, absolutely heartfelt and the author has such a gift for putting words to feelings and situations which perhaps don’t semantically fit but really evoke its lived reality. even though the whole point of the book seems to be that it is a love letter to Black art, at times the references to this art, music etc. felt a bit… clunky? like during a scene when a song is playing, do we need to hear “This is This song by This Artist”? i feel like the lyrics would suffice, at times the long autobiographical or analytical details felt a bit Wikipedia-esque. all the same, at times it really worked: I loved the references to zadie smith and james baldwin, two writers I love too. also there was a technique the writer kept using, of repeating a phrase he had just used in reference to one of these artists and applying it directly to the main character’s life and inner monologue using the same words repeated later in the page, which I liked the effect of in general but was done so many times that it began to feel trite. still a gorgeous book though. 4.25 stars 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality, Car accident, and Death

Moderate: Blood and Racism

s1etal's review

dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality

Moderate: Car accident