Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

Sinister Graves by Marcie R. Rendon

4 reviews

tangleroot_eli's review

challenging dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

This is my least favorite book in the series so far. Although, given how much I like this series, my least favorite book in it is still miles ahead of a lot of other mysteries I've read.

I still really like Cash and her world, and Rendon's writing style. I appreciate that Rendon looks beyond the conventional question of whodunnit and explores the societal conditions that allowed "it" to happen in the first place.

However, Rendon's sparse noir style, which I otherwise greatly enjoy, did a real disservice to 

the complexity and trauma of Dissociative Identity Disorder - or Multiple Personality Disorder, as it was called in the '70s. Rural white people killing Indigenous women and children was and is an all-too-real scenario that doesn’t need a misunderstood mental health diagnosis to explain it away. A killer with unexpected and underexplored DID is big miss, in my book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Mental illness, Death, Racism, and Alcohol

Moderate: Child abuse, Alcoholism, Blood, Violence, Infidelity, Murder, Religious bigotry, Sexual harassment, Confinement, Grief, Kidnapping, and Vomit

Minor: Car accident, Trafficking, War, Death of parent, and Rape

Religious trauma

schomj's review

challenging emotional hopeful mysterious fast-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infertility, Ableism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Mental illness, Racism, Infidelity, Alcoholism, Addiction, Kidnapping, and Child death

Minor: Vomit and Sexual harassment

readingwithkaitlyn's review

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Sexual harassment, Infertility, Blood, Racism, Trafficking, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Ableism, Mental illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Murder, Child abuse, and Drug abuse

Minor: Car accident, Alcohol, War, Infidelity, and Sexual assault

Flooding, drinking and driving, foster care system, starvation, MMIWG2S,

chrism6's review

adventurous lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness

Moderate: Kidnapping, Infidelity, Confinement, Ableism, and Alcohol