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shesreadingagain_'s review against another edition
challenging
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
- 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
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Police brutality
rowanhill's review
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
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? It's complicated
5.0
Features:
- Explores themes around climate change, grief, racism, sense of history, family, and what it really means to be an activist
- An own voices piece
- Multigenerational, character driven novel told from multiple perspectives
- Set predominantly in New Orleans, Nashville, and Mississippi with occasional scenes at Oberlin College in Ohio
This is a captivatingly beautiful and heartfelt piece that will stay with you long past the final page. It weaves together the tale of a family grieving a recent loss with a much longer history of loss and struggle. Told by characters from three different generations, the past comes back to haunt the present in very different ways for each and influences how they try to move forward and support each other. Even when I didn’t really agree with a character’s choices or opinions, I could still understand where they were coming from and empathize with their perspective. This book is definitely more about the characters than plot, so this might not be the book for you if you prefer a clear path that the characters follow as the story unfolds. Otherwise, this is a wonderful and important read that I would highly recommend!
Pro: We are family
This story is told by three characters: Corinne, her grandmother Cora, and Corinne’s uncle Harold. It starts with all three of them getting together for their first Christmas since Cameron, Corrine’s brother, passed away while working on an oil barge. I immediately felt like I was being wrapped in a warm hug as I felt the love shining through every interaction these characters had with each other. However, what I loved even more was that a great deal of tension and misunderstanding is allowed to exist between each of them and highlights their deep connection even further. The characters are so masterfully realized and interplay so beautifully that it is clear even their disagreements are born from a place of love and misunderstanding. Truly, Helgar’s brilliant character work makes this story stand apart from others.
The Breakdown: Those college days
Though we get a number of flashbacks to earlier moments in each character’s life, the ‘present day’ storyline mostly follows Corrine and her environmental activism. Corrine’s view towards global warming feels quite extreme and is jarring in comparison to all of the other beautiful, subtle work that has gone into everything else in this story. However, I also think this is an accurate depiction of a passionate young college student. Corrine is smart and capable, but also naive and has a ‘bulldozer-like’ approach that dismisses the nuances of the situations she is trying to navigate. There were many times Corrine made me cringe and get irritated, but I can’t really knock what feels right for this character as a whole.
This story tends to skip chunks of time, and I think that narrowing in on Corrine’s experiences more would have helped me get her a little more. For example, she goes out to interview people who were affected by Deepwater Horizon (and Katrina, to a lesser extent), but we never get to see any of these interviews or how some of the earlier ones impacted Corrine more directly. Because we don’t get any of these moments and Corrine has trouble verbalizing the driving force behind her fear/passion, it took me a lot longer to understand Corrine than the other characters. We do get there eventually, and I was able to appreciate going on the journey with Corrine in the end.
Special thanks to NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Grief, and Panic attacks/disorders
Moderate: Death, Gaslighting, and Bullying
Minor: Hate crime
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