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sillylily88's review against another edition
2.5
hm
feel like there are some missed content warnings here,,,,,
on the note of the warnings, most were so indulgent and unnecessary in the grand scheme of the book. additionally, the author wrote about sex and bodies like a man would :/
feel like there are some missed content warnings here,,,,,
on the note of the warnings, most were so indulgent and unnecessary in the grand scheme of the book. additionally, the author wrote about sex and bodies like a man would :/
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, Sexual assault, Excrement, Sexual content, Suicide, and Child abuse
Moderate: Misogyny, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Violence, Trafficking, and Torture
pipelizabeth's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Pedophilia, Domestic abuse, Addiction, Body shaming, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Eating disorder, Sexual assault, Child abuse, Injury/Injury detail, and Sexual content
Moderate: Abandonment and Classism
kell_xavi's review against another edition
slow-paced
3.0
Couldn’t the self exist in a single word? Meaning, water. Meaning, war. And what if that word was not allowed?
This novel, and its central characters, flirt with miracle at the place where it’s wedged up against hopelessness. A begging for answers, for people to provide or embody those answers, and the failure of answers to coalesce and remain. A few clean, sparkling scenes, all near the beginning. A few diamond passages about wealth, peppermints, heat, betrayal of the American imagination, soul-deep love, water, sand dunes, the climate crisis, governmental neglect, and trauma-touched youth. A slow sinking into dry dust and a dirtying, a bruising of the land and the story’s reality.
She saw for the first time the way we fill our homes with macabre altars to the live things we’ve murdered—the floral print of the twin mattress in her childhood bedroom, stripped of its sheets after she’d soiled them; ferns on throw pillows coated in formaldehyde; poppies in petrochemical dinner plates; boxes and bags of bulk pulpstuffs emblazoned with plant imagery the way milk cartons are emblazoned with children.
Where are we left at the end? The timeline is sometimes unclear, the place one of stark realism and one of mirage. Somewhere firm and slippery both, with a few paths and a few answers and somewhere to go, and yet nothing, really, none of the certainty we’re all looking for.
Somewhere between Kōbō Abe’s The Woman in the Dunes and Francesca Lia Block’s gritty starlight underbelly books, with a strong literary pull.
This novel, and its central characters, flirt with miracle at the place where it’s wedged up against hopelessness. A begging for answers, for people to provide or embody those answers, and the failure of answers to coalesce and remain. A few clean, sparkling scenes, all near the beginning. A few diamond passages about wealth, peppermints, heat, betrayal of the American imagination, soul-deep love, water, sand dunes, the climate crisis, governmental neglect, and trauma-touched youth. A slow sinking into dry dust and a dirtying, a bruising of the land and the story’s reality.
She saw for the first time the way we fill our homes with macabre altars to the live things we’ve murdered—the floral print of the twin mattress in her childhood bedroom, stripped of its sheets after she’d soiled them; ferns on throw pillows coated in formaldehyde; poppies in petrochemical dinner plates; boxes and bags of bulk pulpstuffs emblazoned with plant imagery the way milk cartons are emblazoned with children.
Where are we left at the end? The timeline is sometimes unclear, the place one of stark realism and one of mirage. Somewhere firm and slippery both, with a few paths and a few answers and somewhere to go, and yet nothing, really, none of the certainty we’re all looking for.
Somewhere between Kōbō Abe’s The Woman in the Dunes and Francesca Lia Block’s gritty starlight underbelly books, with a strong literary pull.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse
Moderate: Drug abuse, Kidnapping, Confinement, Sexual assault, and Trafficking
Minor: Violence, Death of parent, Pedophilia, Religious bigotry, and War
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