Reviews tagging 'Abandonment'

A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet

14 reviews

sarahjulianna's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Violence, Death of parent, Alcohol, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Torture, and Addiction

Moderate: Animal death, Blood, and Animal cruelty

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Sexism, Vomit, Infidelity, Abandonment, Gun violence, Homophobia, Mental illness, and Pregnancy

gotnoculture's review against another edition

I felt no attachment to the characters. The book’s message is simultaneously muddled and heavy handed. The biblical imagery is incredibly obvious and leaves no room for interpretation, and is at points straight up explained to us in-text by a character. It felt like this book did not trust me to form any of my own conclusions. 

A blurb on the dust jacket said the children in this book were “eerily mature” but frankly I just felt they were poorly written. The way the young people talk is overdone and unbelievable; I think the author was attempting to mimic teenhood by just making the characters rude? They throw around the R slur so much, which made this book feel stuck in 2008 despite its supposedly modern setting. And it was just an unnecessarily offensive and upsetting inclusion. 

But the fatal flaw, which made me unable to complete the book, was the author’s intense, transparent fatphobia. Throughout the novel fatness is directly associated with idiocy and cruelty. The bumbling useless parents are fat, the cruel soldier-types are fat. But when

the parents finally show up to be helpful,

they are described as having become thin. This book attempts a message about youth struggling with the mistakes and foolishness of earlier generations, but the potential of this message is dashed by the authors obsessive association of youth with thinness. Over and over again fatness is described as a disgusting trait of the foolish and gluttonous.

This also lends to the author’s struggles with producing any complex metaphors or meanings. We get gluttonous = fat, youthfulness = good and capable, ignorant = ugly, and many other superficial associations. This paired with trite religious imagery had me frequently rolling my eyes. 

I have the review at two stars to give the benefit of the doubt that it had an interesting ending, and that maybe something here was lost on me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia and Abandonment

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, and Death of parent

tifftastic87's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

2.0

A Children's Bible follows a group of teenagers and their younger siblings in what is essentially a multi-family vacation gone wrong. Giving a plot synopsis is difficult as the story is told from an unreliable narrator who also doesn't really know what is going on. We start off with the parents being uninvolved and the kids kind of being on their own, that is a continued thread we follow. What happens in the second half is a climate disaster in terms of a flood that leads to apocalypse style events where we have raiders and bandits and various illnesses. All of these are told from the first person rambling perspective of a, likely 17ish-year-old, teen. 

The characters are incredibly two dimensional. We don't know enough about them to really care as the narrator is telling us back conversations and she doesn't really like anyone other than her younger brother, who is maybe around 10? The only real character we get info about is the younger brother, Jack, who gets a bible as a gift and sees it as a metaphor for everything happening. 

The themes in here are kind of unclear, or heavy handed. It was clear there is a climate crisis and we can blame the older generation and the wealthy for that. However, the conversation never really happens anymore than at a childish level of "you did this!" There was a current of biblical stuff which was... unusual? 

Lastly, there was only one character who was described as having "olive toned skin" and he was the character that took the most abuse from the plot. There was a lot of fat-phobia as well that was just unnecessary.  

Content Warning that isn't an option in the drop down

death during child birth and closed door sexual interactions among miners

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Violence, Animal death, Adult/minor relationship, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Death, Cursing, Torture, Abandonment, Alcohol, Bullying, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Fatphobia, Death of parent, Child abuse, Gun violence, and Drug abuse

Moderate: Body shaming, Pandemic/Epidemic, Blood, Homophobia, Grief, Sexism, and Misogyny

Minor: Racism

readingwithgoose's review against another edition

dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Torture, and Alcoholism

Moderate: Eating disorder, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic, Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Drug use, and Fire/Fire injury

btothebooks's review against another edition

adventurous dark sad medium-paced

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

3.75

What the fuck did I just read? Like its good, but so many times I just stopped and thought “WTF?” 

There’s only a few elements to pinpoint the timeline, but it just feels rushed and not at the same time. There’s an element of Lord of the Flies (but better) and Station Eleven to it all. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, Alcohol, Death of parent, Death, and Medical content

Moderate: Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Fire/Fire injury, Addiction, Child death, Gun violence, and Violence

Minor: Blood

atamano's review against another edition

dark fast-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Drug abuse, Abandonment, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Body shaming, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Pregnancy, and Medical content

Minor: Sexual content

dawntin's review against another edition

dark reflective fast-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Gun violence, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Animal death, Death of parent, Death, and Drug use

Moderate: Blood, Violence, and Pregnancy

Minor: Fatphobia and Homophobia

reading_rainbow_with_chris's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective medium-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

4.0

 

“A Children’s Bible” by Lydia Millet

A group of children and teenagers are frustrated by their parents, holed up in a shared vacation home where the parents act without care or responsibility. When a hurricane sweeps through and begins what appears to be the end of the world, the children take fate into their own hands guided by the prophecies of a child’s bible. I deeply enjoyed Millet’s writing style, especially the mostly consistent use of “we” and “they” as the primary pronouns. Although the narrative is from one teen’s point of view, the use of the collective reframes the story as a community narrative. I will admit that for the me the narrative point about the irresponsibility of past generations was a bit heavy handed at points, but I still felt that there were enough surprises in the story that I remained engaged despite catching the theme very early on. I listened to the audiobook and was compelled to keep listening, but the style of the book was such that I expect I would have been absolutely riveted reading it as well. I strongly recommend this novel. 

 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Abandonment, Death of parent, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Violence, Alcohol, Animal death, and Blood

literarylion's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Pros:

• All-around well-crafted
• Interesting take on climate disaster
• Strong character development and establishment of POV 

Cons:

• A bit derivative of other authors and stories (general dystopia)
• I had trouble orienting myself in the setting for the first quarter or so
• Felt rushed towards the end

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Alcoholism, Blood, Classism, Death of parent, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Abandonment, and Alcohol

Moderate: Vomit, Animal death, Cursing, and Torture

Minor: Sexual content, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, and Pregnancy

shaziareads's review against another edition

adventurous dark reflective 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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Abandonment, Death, and Death of parent

Minor: Alcoholism, Animal death, Confinement, and Drug use