Reviews tagging 'Abandonment'

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

13 reviews

kchin's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense 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

5.0

Heartbreaking, heartwarming, love, loss, fear, hopeful, devastating, all at once. An incredible YA read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Child abuse, Colonisation, Death, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Murder, War, Abandonment, Addiction, Blood, Child death, Genocide, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Rape, and Sexual violence

lpdx's review against another edition

adventurous dark sad slow-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? No

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Abandonment, Alcohol, Child death, Forced institutionalization, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Racism, Rape, Violence, Child abuse, Genocide, Grief, Kidnapping, Torture, Trafficking, Animal death, Colonisation, Death, Medical trauma, and Hate crime

Moderate: Confinement and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Drug use and Cannibalism

msbarnesela's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

3.75

Disclaimer: I’m not the target audience for this book. It’s YA, and it reads like YA, and I am not a teenager. I read this to determine whether I could use it with my students.

The plot moves quickly, and the chapters are short. The premise is compelling. The characters make sense, given the situation and setting. I wanted good things for them. They weren’t always likable, but they’re trying to survive while people are hunting them, and most of them are also dealing with puberty, so some prickliness is to be expected. 

I’m not a huge fan of the style of the prose. The book is from the perspective of the main character, who is a teen boy. The way his emotions and observations are narrated feels a little too exaggerated while also being weirdly self-aware. I would have enjoyed a bit more emotional subtlety and maybe just more writing craft? But again, I’m not the target audience. And I wonder if some of the storytelling techniques are echoing oral narrative techniques that I’m just not culturally connected to.

This is a book that I will use with my students. It has references to some really terrible things (see content warnings), but none of it is graphic. Violence and sex are acknowledged but not narrated, so it’s appropriate for younger high school (and maybe mature 8th graders, with adult support to contextualize and process the traumatic parts). Stylistically and structurally, it’s probably an easy enough read for middle grades. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Death, Genocide, Grief, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Racism, Trafficking, Violence, Child death, Cultural appropriation, and Forced institutionalization

Minor: Abandonment, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Cursing, Medical content, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Pandemic/Epidemic, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Pregnancy, Rape, and Trafficking

One character alludes to being gang-raped (the lead-up and aftermath are briefly detailed, but not the rape itself). Another character is said to have been raped (no detail). Kidnapping, trafficking, medical experimentation, and murder of indigenous people are the premise of the book, so it’s to be expected that it’s referenced. Residential schools are referenced frequently, but there’s very little description of the experience of institutionalization since only one character in the book had spent any time in the schools. There is one reference to sexual arousal between two teens, but nothing happens beyond kissing, and it’s awkwardly and abruptly interrupted. Two young adult characters couple up, and the woman is mentioned to be pregnant, but it’s a passing reference. Some characters shoot people (mostly justifiable self-defense) and feel bad about it afterwards.

augustar14's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense 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

4.75

This book is so powerful. Very well done, hard to listen at times but all important because while set in the future, many of the experiences are based on reality or historic reality for indigenous Americans. Definitely recommend, if you're in a space for something that is heavy and strong.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Abandonment, Alcohol, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Child death, Colonisation, Cultural appropriation, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Genocide, Grief, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Murder, Rape, Addiction, Forced institutionalization, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence

Moderate: Animal death, Alcoholism, and Vomit

Minor: Sexism, Xenophobia, Confinement, Medical content, Cannibalism, and War

pigeonquestions's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring tense fast-paced

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

5.0

Beautifully written. A view of “the apocalypse” entangled with history back to the first residential schools and Indigeous peoples forced from their lands, not just when the coastlines began to shrink or the Water Wars or when a dreamless plague spread over North America. Lovable characters of multiple generations in a found family that I got very attached to. Dark, hopeful, bittersweet, fast-paced. I love the way stories are interwoven into the main narrative. The story features a pair of men who are a couple and though they face adversity, homophobia is never really an issue. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Racism, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Trafficking, Forced institutionalization, Abandonment, Genocide, and Child death

Minor: Sexism, Alcoholism, Rape, and Medical trauma

erebus53's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

This is an award winner, no doubt. A rag-tag family of survivors journey through the wilds of Canada, evading the ever-present threat of those who would capture them and harvest their biological material. This is a story that is more about what it is to be human, than the speculative science of the future. Like many survivalist stories parts of it feel like (as one character puts it) "post-apocalyptic boy scouts" but this story is different from others in that the survivors are Indigenous North Americans, who are also trying to remember and rediscover how to live off the land, feeling the grievous loss of their language and their customs to the oppressive colonists.

spoiler alert.. ok not a spoiler at all; there are no zombies.

As the characters get to know each other and themselves better, it becomes clear that they have all suffered horrible trauma. The description of the physical sensations of trauma is real and visceral. This is the first time I have ever heard someone describe grief as living in the gut and in the backs of the knees. I have to agree (though I would say inside the knuckles also).

Although the teenagers in the group are scarred and damaged, they do have one thing that modern teens often don't and that is duty, and a feeling that they are desperately needed for the survival of their group. They have to look after the young and elderly, learn their languages to share them with future generations, and mind what the outcome of their "romances" might be. They are trained to move silently, to hunt and to track so that they don't go hungry.

Some parts of the book are magical, and based in the spiritual beliefs of Indigenous peoples. At no point is the book completely spelled out, or the rumours about the Schools where the people are detained, ever explained specifically, but I'm not upset by that. The ending is still satisfying, and the interpersonal drama is really what sells the whole experience.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Cultural appropriation, Child death, Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Animal death, Colonisation, Grief, and Forced institutionalization

Moderate: Cultural appropriation, Cursing, and Abandonment

Minor: Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Cannibalism, and Sexual assault

anastasiamakes's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful 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? Yes

3.0

A really powerful rumination on the very real world we could be heading towards if we don't start tackling climate change and pollution, mixed in with a healthy dose of Native American lore. Dystopia focusing on the communities and relationships that form, and survival in the face of insurmountable odds.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation

Moderate: Abandonment, Child death, Forced institutionalization, and Genocide

Minor: Gun violence and Suicidal thoughts

lady_valhella's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

This nook was amazing. It was fast. It was horrific fiction that could so easily be reality. One thing it for sure taught me was that the language that was stolen from is mine to reclaim! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cultural appropriation, Racism, Violence, Abandonment, Drug use, Hate crime, Trafficking, Body horror, Colonisation, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Child death, Death, Genocide, Grief, and Rape

I marked all of these topics as graphic not because the imagery is always real but because the implication is. Also, some of the imagery is very real, very violent and very disturbing but it is a story that should be read because the atrocities inflicted on the indigenous peoples of the western hemisphere is this real. We must all bare witness, at the very least.

nnia's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Outing, War, and Colonisation

Moderate: Colonisation, Rape, Abandonment, Mental illness, Stalking, and Police brutality

dontwritedown's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective 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

2.75

I had high expectations for this book and it hit most of my expectations. It's a breath of fresh air to see Black Natives being represented and not as an after thought.

I love how the author dealt with intercommunity issues like residential schools and language growth. I however don't quite like how the author dealt with mixed Natives outside of Rose, using a lot of inner community derogatory words for them.

That being said, I removed one point each for each character that failed the Aila or Ali Nahdee test. It's a test that measures whether Native women on screen and in media get good representation, that's similar to the Bechdel test. Three characters fail the test, one is sexually assaulted and two more die during events in the book.

Hopefully the sequel has a better result....

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Sexual violence

Minor: Abandonment