Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Obit by Victoria Chang

6 reviews

robinks's review

challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced

4.75

I really loved the format of the poems and the compilation as a whole, I just wish they had been presented in chronological order (though I suppose in this way, Chang emphasizes the timelessness of death). 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Death, and Grief

Moderate: Racism, Medical content, and Terminal illness

Minor: Mass/school shootings

gabbygarcia's review

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Grief, and Medical content

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Mass/school shootings, Miscarriage, and Racism

jayisreading's review

challenging emotional reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

A heartbreaking and beautifully written collection, in which Chang takes the obituary format and refashions them into poems for her to explore her grief in an unflinching manner, meditating on parental illness/death and its lasting impact. What I found powerful was the way Chang highlighted how death and grief encompass more than a loved one’s passing, highlighting a multitude of things that also get caught in death’s hands. I liked that these poems showed how grief is a nonlinear exploration, in which time makes little difference, because, really, isn’t that how grieving works in the end?

I admit that I wasn’t a huge fan of the middle section of this collection, maybe because it was a little difficult for me to follow due to its jaggedness (for lack of a better word). There were some beautiful imagery in this long-form poem, though, even if I didn’t fully grasp their meaning.

Read for the Sealey Challenge. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Grief, and Dementia

Minor: Mass/school shootings, Suicide, Racism, and Miscarriage

penofpossibilities's review

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Dementia, Death of parent, Xenophobia, Racism, and Hate crime

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Police brutality, and Sexual assault

Minor: Miscarriage

readingtotravel's review

challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Grief, Death, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Gun violence, Mass/school shootings, and Racism

spinesinaline's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

3.5

A poetry collection that deals quite heavily in personal and familial grief. Chang’s poems each take the form of an obituary, grieving the loss of language, time, and hope, among others, in the wake of her father’s stroke and worsening amnesia and her mother’s illness and death.

It’s a very heavy collection and feels a bit like drowning as Chang uses these poems to make sense of her emotions and put her grief to words. Some of the poems really resonated and I enjoyed the unique obituary style, but there were some sections that had more of an abstract format and they’ll likely take me a few more read-throughs to really grasp.

Thanks to Cori @ Bookish Cori on IG for her review that brought this one to my attention!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Dementia, Grief, Death of parent, and Medical content

Moderate: Racism