Reviews tagging 'Racism'

The Children on the Hill by Jennifer McMahon

4 reviews

lilacs_book_bower's review against another edition

mysterious sad medium-paced

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

2.75

in the 1970s, Vi and her brother live with their brilliant psychiatrist grandmother, who brings home a new "sister" for them.  Iris is mute and has injuries.  Slowly she comes out of her shell and the children have a club where they imagine they will hunt monsters.  In modern day, now as adults, one of the sisters is hunting the other one, who she suspects of being a serial killer.  Sounds good, right?  Unfortunately, it is pretty obvious which sister is the latter-day narrator, so the surprise falls flat.  There are a couple of other twists that are pretty obvious.  There is a fake out regarding the murdering sister that was nicely done, but then it is walked back.  On one hand, I think the book needed that final punch, but on the other hand, I am not sure how I feel about it affecting the message of the book about people being the real monsters. 

If people are the real monsters (and Iris believes there are real supernatural monsters too), and you have to kill your monster to start over and live, aren't you also becoming a monster?  Are we all just monsters?  If so, doesn't that lessen the impact of the "real" monsters among us? Aren't we supposed to be able to rise above our upbringings?  You could argue the grandmother created a monster in Vi, but Iris turned out more or less fine. As I said, I am ambivalent.

I would have vastly preferred we spend more time with the adult sister.  The story in the past kind of dragged on, since it was super obvious what was happening with both Iris and Vi.  I was also hoping for more from the Mary Shelley angle, but oh well.  This was a fine book and I enjoyed reading it, but I literally forgot I had even read it two days later, which is reflected in the rating. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Medical trauma, Torture, Gaslighting, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Classism, Death of parent, Confinement, Death, Murder, Racism, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, and Mental illness

libraryghost's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Death, Car accident, Ableism, Body horror, Murder, Forced institutionalization, Child abuse, Violence, Torture, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Medical content, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, and Confinement

Moderate: Animal cruelty and Mental illness

toofondofbooks_'s review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

An awesome, spooky and twisty take on "Frankenstein." It was so good that I often forgot that it was a retelling. It's so good at standing on its own in that way. I feel like there isn't a lot that I can say about this book without giving stuff away - I went into it mostly blindly and all I knew was that it had creepy kids and that it was a Frankenstein retelling. That's all I needed. So, if that's all you need, pick it up.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Gun violence, Murder, Child abuse, Gaslighting, Torture, Animal death, Child death, Sexual assault, Injury/Injury detail, Genocide, Xenophobia, Medical trauma, Medical content, Mental illness, Animal cruelty, Ableism, Fire/Fire injury, and Racism

Moderate: Fatphobia and Incest

Minor: Abortion, War, Self harm, Homophobia, Sexual content, and Excrement

dalmavatai's review

dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This started off pretty slow and the writing is quite descriptive, but after the first little bit it got really interesting! I adored Vi as a character, she was so smart, fierce and stubborn and I loved being in her mind. I also enjoyed the amateur sleuth vibes of both timelines and was really interested in the mysteries, though I think because of Vi I enjoyed the past timeline more. The first reveal was about 50% of the way through and I thought it was so fascinating and prompted some really intriguing conversations. There was another reveal towards the end which I did not see coming, only when we got to the scene and I was like, hmm okay I think I know what's gonna happen now - what a reveal! I also adored the sisterly bond between Vi and Iris throughout the book, plus this is such an innovative twist on the classic Frankenstein story with a lot of added social commentary which I also thought was very well done. 

I'm so happy this is my first Jennifer McMahon because I'll definitely be checking out more of her backlist! Also wanted to add that the trigger warnings I listed might be considered spoilers so you might not wanna look at those if you wanna be completely caught off guard. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Car accident, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Ableism, Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, and Racism