Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

Caul Baby by Morgan Jerkins

5 reviews

caseythereader's review

challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Blood, Child abuse, Infertility, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Police brutality, Death of parent, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Drug use, Child death, Cursing, Death, Pregnancy, and Suicide

gen_wolfhailstorm's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective 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

4.0

The Details:
Narrated by Joniece Abbott-Pratt
Unabridged

I think I would have loved this more if I physically read it, because I've been enjoying generational stories following a matriarchal set up recently, however I couldn't follow along strongly to the threads of who connected to who and place the character I knew as a child to the adult in the second half. 

Despite this, I could easily tell that this was a powerful novel. There was so many interesting and strong characters and I enjoyed seeing the two sides of why Melancons sold pieces of their caul in comparison to those they wouldn't sell to or who didn't agree with it. It got even more deep when Hallow was brought into the mixture.

The content surrounding caul babies was unique to me as I hadn't known much about these births before, and recognised it under the term "mermaid births", so it was cool to explore the mythos around this.

The conclusion was fantastic and I felt really satisfied with it.

This was a dark, deep generational story, that felt a little magical, but with a heavy hand of corruption, that was executed beautifully and I think I would benefit from going over a physical copy at a later stage to piece together some of the connections I lost track of via audio.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infertility, Fire/Fire injury, Death, Child abuse, Death of parent, Infidelity, and Abandonment

peachani's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Body horror, Bullying, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Grief, Blood, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Toxic relationship, Injury/Injury detail, and Police brutality

Moderate: Abandonment, Child abuse, Infidelity, Fire/Fire injury, and Racism

Minor: Child death, Terminal illness, Vomit, Ableism, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Gaslighting, and Genocide

bookshelf_al's review

dark emotional 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infertility, Miscarriage, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Body horror and Infidelity

Minor: Fire/Fire injury

leah_alexandra's review

mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

3.0

I'm so conflicted here because I really really wanted to love this book. The premise sets this up to be a totally fascinating read, but the writing and overall execution just falls flat. The dialogue is trite, and there is very little character development because of how quickly the book moves forward in time, skipping chunks of years in the process. Many of the minor characters and plot points feel like caricatures meant to make quite heavy-handed points about Black motherhood, which is a tremendously important conversation to have, but does it have to be so intro-level? I kind of wish the story had either leaned in harder to the magical realism aspects or taken a harder turn towards realism with a more in-depth exploration of Amara's work in the DA's office to put together a case against the Melancons. It wasn't a bad book, just not as good as I was expecting. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Blood, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Infertility, Infidelity, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Pregnancy, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Police brutality