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amyrandles1's review
Quite graphic, not currently in the mood for such a heavy book
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence, Misogyny, and Sexual content
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
emzireads's review
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape, Violence, Misogyny, Miscarriage, and Lesbophobia
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. It’s 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 wasn’t familiar with etc. I’m 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 they’ve lost some authenticity in the process. That wasn’t 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
2treads's review
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Mohammed has definitely captured the essence of what life can mean for many people who reside in islands that most use to 'getaway', to 'kick back', 'relax', and 'live'. Pleasantview gives snippets of the realness of island life, what is faced and experienced and does so with a sharpness, clarity, deftness that underscores but never edifies the violence and poverty that is exists.
The characters are written so well, their circumstances, decisions, and motivations relayed with such intent, and makes these stories hard to look away from.
Mohammed underscores her stories with issues of identity crisis, greed, corruption, violence, sexuality, denial, secrets, illicit acts and relationships; widening a window into the complexities that people are, that their situations are and what that all looks like when the chickens come home to roost.
This collection was a breeze to read with characters that propelled each story, behaviours and tricks that both thrilled and dismayed, while centering vulnerabilities and hopes.
The characters are written so well, their circumstances, decisions, and motivations relayed with such intent, and makes these stories hard to look away from.
Mohammed underscores her stories with issues of identity crisis, greed, corruption, violence, sexuality, denial, secrets, illicit acts and relationships; widening a window into the complexities that people are, that their situations are and what that all looks like when the chickens come home to roost.
This collection was a breeze to read with characters that propelled each story, behaviours and tricks that both thrilled and dismayed, while centering vulnerabilities and hopes.
Content Warnings
Minor: Rape, Trafficking, Violence, Miscarriage, and Homophobia
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