Reviews tagging 'Terminal illness'

Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson

5 reviews

betsygrace's review

adventurous emotional sad slow-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? It's complicated

5.0

Really good book with twists I never expected, but the story felt nice and resolved nonetheless

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Hate crime, Child death, Racial slurs, Death, Death of parent, Medical content, Sexism, Abortion, Miscarriage, Terminal illness, Alcohol, Car accident, Fire/Fire injury, Infertility, and Medical trauma

beccaj11's review

challenging emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-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? It's complicated

4.0

The writing is beautiful, but the book moves slowly for a while. It’s a heavy story with a lot of loss and grief, but the magnified look at a marriage under hardship and a town deeply rooted in its history was incredibly well done. What stopped me from giving this 4.5 or 5 stars? A truly devastating ending that I found completely unnecessary. This book has so much heaviness baked into it and just as the sun starts to shine through, it is torn apart again and honestly, it made me so mad. This writer is an incredibly talented storyteller and scene painter, but I will never forgive them for that ending. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infertility, Pregnancy, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Death, and Miscarriage

Moderate: Alcohol, Car accident, Violence, Misogyny, Abortion, Infidelity, and Animal death

Minor: War and Terminal illness

prof_pelon's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense slow-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence, Alcohol, Cancer, Car accident, Child death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Infertility, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Sexism, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Terminal illness, Abortion, Animal death, Bullying, Death, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, and Racism

davidrb's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-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

Man, I'm leaving this unrated for the moment because I just don't know.

Richly written, with excellent character building, but didn't stick the landing. I really need to highlight the work Davidson puts into writing realistic characters: it's easy to slip into stereotypes and caricature with rural people and their lives, but they feel so human. I don't like most of them, but that's fine. Colleen, Enid, and Daniel stand out as my favorites. 

But man, that ending. For a book that's all buildup, that's where it goes? Maybe I'll get it better on a reread.

The main reason I'm withholding a rating is the portrayal of the Yurok characters. I'm non Native myself, so I can't speak to it, but I'll be looking for Native reviewers' thoughts on the story. I liked Daniel personally, but something about the way he was written struck me as off, especially with the modern day climate where water protectors are still fighting his same battle.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal death, Bullying, Cancer, Car accident, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Grief, Infertility, Infidelity, Medical content, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Pregnancy, Racism, Terminal illness, and Violence

abookwanderer's review against another edition

emotional informative inspiring mysterious sad 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? It's complicated

5.0

Damnation Spring is an ambitious, heart-wrenching debut with beautifully flawed characters and an immersive setting. It’s not often a book brings me to tears, but this book left me an emotional mess. I won’t be surprised if it ends up as one of my top reads for the year. I would even venture to say it’s a perfect novel.

While it took me a while to settle into, by the end of the book I was completely invested in the story of this broken and troubled family. I didn’t want to leave them. Davidson has brought a small logging town in the 1970s Pacific Northwest to life. And while some of the logging jargon was hard to follow at times, it never took me out of the book. In fact, it made it even more real.

And that’s what they made Google for, anyway, right?? I love when a good story also teaches me something.

I was repeatedly impressed with Davidson’s ability to have me sympathizing with the loggers when I knew if I was plopped down into this story, I’d be one of the hippie tree-huggers. She humanized each character, whether they were ‘good’ or ‘bad’.

The book is told from three different points of view: Rich, his wife Colleen, and their five year old son Chub. I was never lost when the views changed, each voice distinct and beloved by the end.

While it deals with some very heavy and serious subjects—environmental degradation, infidelity, miscarriage, birth defects—at its heart, it’s a novel about perseverance, family history, commitment, and love. This story wrecked me. In a good way, and I’ll be thinking about it for a long time.

Thank you to Scribner and Netgalley for an advanced reader’s copy.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Infertility, Death, and Child death

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Terminal illness, Racial slurs, Medical content, Death of parent, Car accident, Alcoholism, and Abortion