Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

When Will This Cruel War Be Over?: The Civil War Diary of Emma Simpson, Gordonsville, Virginia, 1864 by Barry Denenberg

2 reviews

peytonktracy's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

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

3.0

Oof. This book had me set up to be skeptical from the minute I picked it up, that it's from the perspective of a young woman in Virginia whose family owns slaves and is fighting for the Confederacy in the American Civil War. I'm not opposed to having problematic history portrayed in fiction, like this, but I feel this one could have been done more carefully than it was. There were occasional letters from Emma's father going on wildly racist rants and rampages about "Northern aggression" which alludes to the idea that the war was about "state's rights" and not explicitly slavery. There was also a lot of what I would consider "mammie" portrayals of enslaved people; very convenient that all of Emma's family's slaves were the loyal dedicated kind who loved their kind, gracious masters. So those elements made me cringe a bit, but I suppose it could have been worse. That being said, I felt like I never knew exactly what was going on historically in this book because, accurate to the moment in history, Emma didn't know what was happening. It was more just repeated death and violence and trauma over and over again and then the book ended. It was a little bizarre in that way - I felt like Emma did grow from a child to a traumatized young adult by the end but I never felt like I saw the growth, just the horrors that forced her to grow up. It was certainly more character focused than others in the series, which I appreciated, but still didn't land right for me. But as the rare book from the Southern perspective in the war, I would say it wasn't a bad read? Go in with a couple tablespoons of salt. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Slavery, War, Violence, Child death, Grief, Racism, Animal death, and Death of parent

littleseal's review

After reading another Dear America book, this one is pretty boring in comparison. There was definitely a funny moment or two, a number of tragedies, and some interesting historical context but they overall felt lackluster. Especially because as other reviewers said, some of the historical context is inaccurate. Like it's "nice" her slaves were "treated well" but it felt icky reading. Maybe that's the point.

Also, pretty sure Rachel (the cousin) was gay. All her talk of not wanting to get married, being disinterested in boys... I'm telling you, she was a lesbian.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Grief, Medical content, Racism, Slavery, Terminal illness, Violence, War, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Animal death, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, and Suicide