Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - Memorial

Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Memorial by Bryan Washington

94 reviews

menomica's review against another edition

reflective sad slow-paced

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

Ok, I will say, the writing of this book was very good. It’s what kept me coming back. It was very simplistic, which I liked. It got the point across.
I feel like the book wanted to do things, but never really delivered. The book itself suffers from not having a proper ending, like much of the storylines in it. I think the most obvious example is with Tam. He’s introduced, as if he’s going to a huge player and very influential, but then he fucks off for 20 pages, and only comes back for three lines before Mike ditches him.
Other things/themes I felt like this book pointed at but never actually took the time to elaborate on:

Racism: Besides the “racist jokes” and that instance with the racist waiter, the biggest moment of this for me was with the Workers at the play center and how they interacted with Ahmad/Benson was giving very much let’s antagonize the black kid cause it’s easiest to do. Also, even though it was a joke, them referring to Ahmad as Ben’s because they’re the only black people in the center felt… racially motivated. But it was never really elaborated beyond that. The theme of race itself was prominent throughout the book, and I think that was done well because it was obviously from an observational lense, and not with the intent of making commentary, but sometimes it felt like they’d touch on racism and then drop it like a hot potato
Tam. Wtf. What was the reason for him being there. For Mike to have a potential love interest?? Nothing developed between them, and yet he was introduced as someone who was going to be super big and important for Mike. ~~THEY DIDN’T EVEN HAVE SEX~~ They exchange very minimal conversion and it just felt like there was supposed to be development there but it just never happened. And then Mike just left (like his dad did with him)!

Speaking of Mike. Ew. This is very much a Mike hate account. He’s very immature and inconsiderate. He can’t figure out his shit and leaves others to deal with the fall out for that. The biggest example of this, besides the failure that is his relationship with Ben, is that he invited his mother over to the states just to leave to go to Japan. He’s a bit selfish. And also, he literally said a fucking slur??? There was no way he was going to be good with that joke he said at the end of the first chapter. He also invalidates Ben a lot, if not with the fact that they grew up differently economically, then just his emotions in general. He never respects the boundaries that Ben places (the monogamy, letting his mother stay at their place while he was in Japan). So yeah, throughout this book I was very much rooting for Ben to pack his shit and leave him.

Content Warnings