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zas9's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual assault, Rape, Domestic abuse, Miscarriage, and Infertility
carriepond's review
dark
reflective
medium-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
4.0
Pleasantview is a novel in short stories set in a fictional town in Trinidad and Tobago called Pleasantview. Each of the stories works as standalone short stories, but characters from one story show up in others, creating an overall narrative that you might find in a traditional novel.
"Curled up, under her magical pony-and-rainbow sheets, she had prayed and prayed to fall asleep and wake up a boy. That way, she'd always belong to herself; other people might even belong to her."
"It wasn't scary and foggy no more. He was seeing a new road with black-and-white answers now. . . . Now he feel free . . . Now he had other people, the real culprit-and-them, to hate."
The book summary says that "Pleasantview reveals the dark side of the Caribbean dream," and that it does. Definitely review trigger warnings for this title, because the book covers many heavy topics. But Celeste Mohammed handles it all so expertly, and the characters she creates really shine. I really loved seeing how each story would build on the next, and it really hit home how the decisions we make and actions we take are never isolated-- we are all connected and bound up in one another.
Excellent collection of short stories.
"Curled up, under her magical pony-and-rainbow sheets, she had prayed and prayed to fall asleep and wake up a boy. That way, she'd always belong to herself; other people might even belong to her."
"It wasn't scary and foggy no more. He was seeing a new road with black-and-white answers now. . . . Now he feel free . . . Now he had other people, the real culprit-and-them, to hate."
The book summary says that "Pleasantview reveals the dark side of the Caribbean dream," and that it does. Definitely review trigger warnings for this title, because the book covers many heavy topics. But Celeste Mohammed handles it all so expertly, and the characters she creates really shine. I really loved seeing how each story would build on the next, and it really hit home how the decisions we make and actions we take are never isolated-- we are all connected and bound up in one another.
Excellent collection of short stories.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Violence, Infidelity, and Miscarriage
Moderate: Gun violence, Sexual assault, Sexism, and Homophobia
Minor: Abandonment and Alcoholism
bookdragon217's review
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
5.0
"Women were cursed, Kimberly had decided then: their own bodies didn't even belong to them."
Pleasantview by Celeste Mohamed was on of my favorite reads for Caribbean Heritage Month. This was a propulsive read that I devoured on my plane ride home from vacation. Each short story didn't feel disconnected from the next but instead added more layers to the full picture. Mohamed has solidified herself as an auto-buy for me from now on. All I can say is "What a debut!"
Reading this one made me think about the expression "All that glitters isn't gold." Often time people go on vacation to escape their real.life but never once think about the daily lives of people that live in the places where they vacation. It is easy to forget real life when you are lost in the allure of resort life but just steps away from these places is where you find the reality of life in these places. Mohamed's writing grips you and you won't be able to look away because what she says in these pages is powerful and challenges what you thought you knew about Caribbean island life.
Mohamed does this by giving you a glimpse into the life of the residents of imaginary town Pleasantview. Not only did Mohamed show you Trinidadian life but she also interrogates heavy themes and call outs the things that need to change. The stories felt cohesive and the characters were complex. The core themes that intersected with the characters were:
๐น๐น sex trafficking
๐น๐น violence against women
๐น๐น colorism
๐น๐น homophobia in the Caribbean
๐น๐น mixed race heritage
๐น๐น diversity of island culture
๐น๐น sexuality and identity
๐น๐น social stratification
๐น๐น myth of tourism benefiting residents
๐น๐น dominance of religion, misogyny & patriarchy
๐น๐น allure & falsehood of the American dream
๐น๐น reality of immigration process for Black Caribbean people
๐น๐น ancestral ways of wisdom
If you haven't read this one yet, then what are you waiting for? Mohamed is already a commanding voice in Caribbean literature and one that I am looking forward to reading more from.
Pleasantview by Celeste Mohamed was on of my favorite reads for Caribbean Heritage Month. This was a propulsive read that I devoured on my plane ride home from vacation. Each short story didn't feel disconnected from the next but instead added more layers to the full picture. Mohamed has solidified herself as an auto-buy for me from now on. All I can say is "What a debut!"
Reading this one made me think about the expression "All that glitters isn't gold." Often time people go on vacation to escape their real.life but never once think about the daily lives of people that live in the places where they vacation. It is easy to forget real life when you are lost in the allure of resort life but just steps away from these places is where you find the reality of life in these places. Mohamed's writing grips you and you won't be able to look away because what she says in these pages is powerful and challenges what you thought you knew about Caribbean island life.
Mohamed does this by giving you a glimpse into the life of the residents of imaginary town Pleasantview. Not only did Mohamed show you Trinidadian life but she also interrogates heavy themes and call outs the things that need to change. The stories felt cohesive and the characters were complex. The core themes that intersected with the characters were:
๐น๐น sex trafficking
๐น๐น violence against women
๐น๐น colorism
๐น๐น homophobia in the Caribbean
๐น๐น mixed race heritage
๐น๐น diversity of island culture
๐น๐น sexuality and identity
๐น๐น social stratification
๐น๐น myth of tourism benefiting residents
๐น๐น dominance of religion, misogyny & patriarchy
๐น๐น allure & falsehood of the American dream
๐น๐น reality of immigration process for Black Caribbean people
๐น๐น ancestral ways of wisdom
If you haven't read this one yet, then what are you waiting for? Mohamed is already a commanding voice in Caribbean literature and one that I am looking forward to reading more from.
Content Warnings
Minor: Miscarriage, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Sexism, Trafficking, Misogyny, Lesbophobia, and Colonisation
alenezela99's review
dark
emotional
reflective
fast-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? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual assault
serendipitysbooks's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
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
4.25
Pleasantview is a novel-in-short stories which exposes the darker side of the fictional Trinidadian town in which it is set. Itโs a book I flew through. I really enjoyed raging at all the appropriate points - environmental abuse, hypocrisy, violence against women, corruption, misogyny, homophobia, racism and classism and more.
I loved the format. Just like in a mosaic where the image is greater than the sum of its individual tiles, so the stories in this book combined to make a novel richer and more powerful than its component pieces.
The combination of standard English and Trinidadian patois was really effective at transporting me to Pleasantview. I certainly have a much broader understanding of the variety of Trinidadian life and culture - much more varied and complex than the stereotypical Caribbean image suggests - after reading this book. I had to work for some of it, Googling terms I wasnโt familiar with etc. Iโm happy to do so and see it as a strength rather than a weakness in the book. Sometimes books which cater strongly to white western readers feel like theyโve lost some authenticity in the process. That wasnโt the case here.
While there were no weak stories, the final story was one of the standouts for me. I had no idea that, per capita, more people travel to the Middle East to join Isis from Trinidad and Tobago than from any other Western country. Kings of the Earth is a chilling gut punch for the realistic way it shows one youth being slowly but surely drawn into the ISIS fold
Content Warnings
Graphic: Miscarriage, Sexual assault, and Violence
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