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siobhanward's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Sexual violence, Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Child abuse, Rape, Miscarriage, and Sexual assault
Moderate: Child death, Death of parent, Death, and Pregnancy
dolores_lola's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Drug use, Drug abuse, Rape, Child abuse, and Abandonment
pbandjane_library's review against another edition
Moderate: Drug abuse, Toxic relationship, and Physical abuse
fredrikamarias's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Graphic: Physical abuse, Addiction, Pedophilia, Drug use, Child abuse, Pregnancy, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Violence, Police brutality, Murder, Rape, Sexual violence, Adult/minor relationship, Drug abuse, Grief, Gore, and Mental illness
Moderate: Death, Misogyny, Death of parent, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Cursing, and Sexism
uliel's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Graphic: Drug abuse, Sexual violence, Child abuse, Drug use, Murder, Physical abuse, and Miscarriage
Moderate: Rape
lizzidown's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Drug abuse, Addiction, Rape, Physical abuse, Murder, and Pedophilia
alisonvh's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Drug abuse, Death, Addiction, Animal death, Child death, Drug use, Death of parent, Sexism, Sexual content, Murder, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence
artemisg's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
It has been said many times, but Tiffany McDaniel can write. Every sentence in this book was just beautiful and spoke to my soul.
My mother, aunt, and grandmother were women of hot skin who seemed to sweat even in the middle of a blizzard. Women who always put on mascara to the radio, talking with pride about our centuries-dead mamaw who was hung as a witch, not once, but twice. She was burned when the noose broke.
"It is from her that we get our hot skin," Mamaw Milkweed would say, telling my sister and me that we had a touch of the witch in us.
"You can't put a woman to fire and expect the flesh of the women after her not to feel that very heat. It is also from her that we dream of the future."
This novel is inspired by the unsolved murders of the Chillicothe Six and follows twins Arcade (Arc) and Daffodil (Daffy) as they discover bodies in the river, and their loved ones become bodies in the river. These bodies are of women who are not the “perfect victims”, they are women who, due to the circumstances of their lives, turned to drugs and prostitution. This makes them unimportant in the eyes of law enformecment and the eyes of the locals. But, they are important to their friends, their families, and themselves. This is a harrowing examination of girlhood and womanhood in poverty, of generational trauma, and drug addiction and abuse. It is heartbreaking and beautifully written and captivating and intense.
We fell silent with the chill, studying the woman on the ground before us, trying to find her story. We weren't sure if that story was in the new cuts up and down her arms, or in the old ones, scarred over. … Maybe she'd carved her name into a tree and picked her teeth when watched by the men with knives in their eyes. I couldn't stop imagining her life. In the winter, her pulling her coat tight against herself and pretending to smoke the cold air. I didn't know her enough to imagine the big moments of her life. I could only envision the small
ones.
McDaniel thrives when writing about complex and nuanced characters, and the characters we meet in this novel are that. The girls we meet have complex inner lives and are treated with incredible kindness by McDaniel and each other and incredible, violent abuse from other characters in the novel. They navigate some of the worst things that can happen to a person and somehow still treat one another with gentle love and kindness, even when they have not been shown any kindness in decades.
“Years from now," she said, "an archaeologist like you, Arc, will dig my tooth up and I'lI matter because I'll be from the past. They'll wonder who I was and they'll give me a better story than my truth."
The incorporation of nature into this book was an incredible narrative choice, as were the fictionalised autopsy reports. Reading them made me overwhelmingly emotional. Reading this book as a whole made me overwhelmingly emotional, it was devastating.
"But it's not a fire taking the women," she said. "It's a river."
"Drowning is just another way to burn us," I said.
Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Sexual violence
Moderate: Rape and Sexual assault
Minor: Child abuse and Pregnancy
trvshbvt's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This is another book that will stay with me forever. I feel like I know every single character as if I’ve met them in real life. I had no idea addiction played such a large part in this book, which is something that hits close to home. I appreciated the way McDaniel gave these women such detailed and moving backstories, showing that they were so much more than their addictions.
I thought I had a good idea of how the story would end but the actual ending had me audibly say “WHAT” to myself more than once.
An easy 5/5
Graphic: Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Drug use, Addiction, Death, Drug abuse, and Child abuse
Moderate: Animal cruelty and Miscarriage
siriface's review against another edition
4.25
Graphic: Drug use, Drug abuse, Death, Murder, Sexual assault, and Violence