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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Child death, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Fatphobia, Suicide, Excrement, Death of parent, Toxic friendship
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Drug use, Mental illness, Cannibalism, Car accident
Feeling a little underwhelmed with this one, particularly since I really enjoyed Sisters of the Lost Nation and Nick Medina's short story in Never Whistle at Night. Horrors that are all too real simmer beneath a blanket of Indigenous folklore and legends – mental health, substance use, intergenerational trauma, and more.
Noemi Broussard and her boyfriend Roddy are ready to start a new life – until he is killed in a car accident. The driver claims Roddy ran out in front of her vehicle, and his death is soon declared a suicide. As Noemi grapples with grief and tries to find a reason for Roddy's death, any reason at all, her uncle Louie believes that something darker is going on – something that has been lurking in the community since he was a teenager.
When Louie was young, the community was plagued by a series of increasingly strange and sinister events. A corpse sits up in her coffin; the dead don't stay buried; innocents are lured to their death in horrific ways. Louie thought that he'd left the past behind, but when he returns he realizes that these cycles – the old myths and legends – are still devouring their community.
Through alternating perspectives and timelines, Noemi and Louie grapple with both their own demons and the ripple effect that it's had on those around them. The tamahka – mythical crocodile-like creatures – that devour people whole, the destruction and the rot that creeps into the bones of those who give into the darkness – it's all basically a very extended metaphor for intergenerational trauma. Unfortunately, in trying to do too much, this novel ended up not being particularly compelling or unsettling in either its horror or real-world realms. Is it horror? As usual, the horror is the darkness that resides in all of us.
I'd still read future books by Nick Medina, but this one wasn't my favourite.
Noemi Broussard and her boyfriend Roddy are ready to start a new life – until he is killed in a car accident. The driver claims Roddy ran out in front of her vehicle, and his death is soon declared a suicide. As Noemi grapples with grief and tries to find a reason for Roddy's death, any reason at all, her uncle Louie believes that something darker is going on – something that has been lurking in the community since he was a teenager.
When Louie was young, the community was plagued by a series of increasingly strange and sinister events. A corpse sits up in her coffin; the dead don't stay buried; innocents are lured to their death in horrific ways. Louie thought that he'd left the past behind, but when he returns he realizes that these cycles – the old myths and legends – are still devouring their community.
Through alternating perspectives and timelines, Noemi and Louie grapple with both their own demons and the ripple effect that it's had on those around them. The tamahka – mythical crocodile-like creatures – that devour people whole, the destruction and the rot that creeps into the bones of those who give into the darkness – it's all basically a very extended metaphor for intergenerational trauma. Unfortunately, in trying to do too much, this novel ended up not being particularly compelling or unsettling in either its horror or real-world realms. Is it horror? As usual, the horror is the darkness that resides in all of us.
I'd still read future books by Nick Medina, but this one wasn't my favourite.
Did Not Finish at 25 percent.
I really can't even summarize or recap this one. Sorry. I can honestly say that I started this way back at the end of last year and tried to get into it a few times and finally just pulled the plug. I was not enjoying it. The jumbled storytelling with the two characters in two different timelines/ages was doing my head in. I don’t know what is going on but I just hit, I don’t care enough to force read this anymore the other day and I still don't care enough to finish it.
The flow was really bad and it may have made better sense to have the earlier timeline first and we just stick with it, instead of jumping back and forth and trying to figure out the ages/timelines.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
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:
Complicated
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Okay so I didn't realize this was a horror novel (or actually, I just forgot) because when all the weird supernatural shit started happening, I wasn't sure if it was like...actually happening and I should take it as fact in the novel or if the characters were all having bad acid trips or if Louie was developing psychosis or what was going on. Eventually, I figured that it was actually supposed to be happening in the novel, so it worked out in the end, but it would have helped if I'd known it was a supernatural/horror genre to begin with lol. That's on me.
Anyway, this is sort of a coming of age novel that's framed initially as a mystery (sort of) that deals primarily with the difficulties around depression, suicide, alcoholism, trauma, and grief. We so rarely have Native American main characters in novels, and I really enjoyed reading from these characters' perspectives in that sense, but also...most of the characters annoyed the shit out of me except for Louie (mostly). But also, to the author's credit, I think he did portray the grief of a group of people who feel like they are trapped and have no way out of a constantly repeating generational cycle. The hopelessness was well written in the novel, and maybe that is what I was reacting to when I said that the characters annoyed me. The author grappled with both generational and individual trauma and was able to comment on how the trauma relates to colonization within the Native American communities.
There were times when I was confused, although like I said earlier, I probably would have been less confused if I had known that this was not supposed to be strictly in the ~real world and that it had a supernatural/horror element to it. Also, like most people, I ended up caring more about Louie's sections of the book more, but it feels like the author also focused on those sections more in terms of plot and character development, so that makes sense.
This is a novel where the horror was linked very strongly to psychological trauma manifested in the physical world. I really enjoyed that parallel and the idea of trauma made into a physical, tangible thing to show the damage that it can do to everyone. With the exploration of alcoholism and mental health difficulties leading to death, the supernatural elements only highlighted the struggles that the characters were going through and demonstrated that these issues can never be subdued for long.
Anyway, this is sort of a coming of age novel that's framed initially as a mystery (sort of) that deals primarily with the difficulties around depression, suicide, alcoholism, trauma, and grief. We so rarely have Native American main characters in novels, and I really enjoyed reading from these characters' perspectives in that sense, but also...most of the characters annoyed the shit out of me except for Louie (mostly). But also, to the author's credit, I think he did portray the grief of a group of people who feel like they are trapped and have no way out of a constantly repeating generational cycle. The hopelessness was well written in the novel, and maybe that is what I was reacting to when I said that the characters annoyed me. The author grappled with both generational and individual trauma and was able to comment on how the trauma relates to colonization within the Native American communities.
There were times when I was confused, although like I said earlier, I probably would have been less confused if I had known that this was not supposed to be strictly in the ~real world and that it had a supernatural/horror element to it. Also, like most people, I ended up caring more about Louie's sections of the book more, but it feels like the author also focused on those sections more in terms of plot and character development, so that makes sense.
This is a novel where the horror was linked very strongly to psychological trauma manifested in the physical world. I really enjoyed that parallel and the idea of trauma made into a physical, tangible thing to show the damage that it can do to everyone. With the exploration of alcoholism and mental health difficulties leading to death, the supernatural elements only highlighted the struggles that the characters were going through and demonstrated that these issues can never be subdued for long.
DNF at 20%, I may have gotten a little farther but forgot to log before I returned the audiobook.
I may have liked this one better physically, the narration for Louie was difficult for me to enjoy based on the pacing. Farmer chose to be really monotone and very slow. I had to speed him up to 2.75 just to be able feel like the sentence didn't have random periods between each word. I listened to some previews of other works of his and didn't have this problem, maybe it was just an off couple of days for him here.
The plot was pretty slow, there were two storylines. One in current day following Noemi's boyfriend being suspected of dying by suicide and Noemi refusing to believe it because he was so happy and they had so many plans. The conversation around this seemed to be doing something interesting but I didn't really like Noemi herself much. Louie, Noemi's uncle, was used for the perspective of an event that happened years ago and was potentially supernatural in nature. I have no doubt these two things will eventually connect, but it was doing that thing I hate where someone knows something that will help but they just refuse to share.
I may pick this up physically later, but for now it is not working as an audio book.
I may have liked this one better physically, the narration for Louie was difficult for me to enjoy based on the pacing. Farmer chose to be really monotone and very slow. I had to speed him up to 2.75 just to be able feel like the sentence didn't have random periods between each word. I listened to some previews of other works of his and didn't have this problem, maybe it was just an off couple of days for him here.
The plot was pretty slow, there were two storylines. One in current day following Noemi's boyfriend being suspected of dying by suicide and Noemi refusing to believe it because he was so happy and they had so many plans. The conversation around this seemed to be doing something interesting but I didn't really like Noemi herself much. Louie, Noemi's uncle, was used for the perspective of an event that happened years ago and was potentially supernatural in nature. I have no doubt these two things will eventually connect, but it was doing that thing I hate where someone knows something that will help but they just refuse to share.
I may pick this up physically later, but for now it is not working as an audio book.
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
adventurous
dark
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I was so excited to realize this was going to tell the story of Noemi and Lula. While Sisters of the Lost Nation was a slow building terror, this felt like a full kamikaze crash into horror. Everything about this was wild and at a 10.