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keenanmaree's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This is a really hard one to rate. It was such a deeply personal reading experience in so many ways, not all of them super comfortable.
5 stars for setting, absolutely. It’s set in Klamath, which is about 45 minutes from where I grew up, and every mention of a familiar place and description of the environment was like a warm blanket over my homesick heart.
Everything beyond that, though, was just so heavy. I know that it’s all pretty accurate to the history of the area, but that didn’t make it less of a tough read. I knew a story set in that area around that time period was gonna be at best bittersweet, but it got to the point where it started to feel like misery porn.
5 stars for setting, absolutely. It’s set in Klamath, which is about 45 minutes from where I grew up, and every mention of a familiar place and description of the environment was like a warm blanket over my homesick heart.
Everything beyond that, though, was just so heavy. I know that it’s all pretty accurate to the history of the area, but that didn’t make it less of a tough read. I knew a story set in that area around that time period was gonna be at best bittersweet, but it got to the point where it started to feel like misery porn.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Sexism, Blood, Death, Grief, Gun violence, Medical content, Racism, Animal death, Car accident, Miscarriage, Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, Infidelity, and Misogyny
Moderate: Alcohol, Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Abortion, and Cancer
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
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
mkhaupt's review
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Abortion, Pregnancy, Miscarriage, Car accident, and Racism
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.
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
katesbooknook's review against another edition
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Car accident, Racism, Infidelity, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Cursing, Miscarriage, Grief, Animal death, and Death
Moderate: Misogyny, Murder, Abortion, Sexism, and Ableism
Minor: Cancer
bookswithmybulldog's review against another edition
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Infertility, Child death, Pregnancy, and Animal cruelty
Moderate: Medical content, Death of parent, Infidelity, Car accident, and Violence
Minor: Abortion
hollybearhouck's review
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
A slow burn, one that brought me to tears multiple times.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence and Miscarriage
Minor: Animal death, Car accident, Infertility, Abortion, Animal cruelty, Cancer, Fire/Fire injury, Pregnancy, and Cursing
serendipitysbooks's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
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? Yes
4.25
What happens when economic concerns and environmental concerns collide? That’s the issue at the heart of Damnation Spring, the story of a marriage and a California logging community both facing challenges in the late 1970s. It does a great job of highlighting growing environmental concerns about the logging industry, especially the impact of the aerial application of weed killers and balancing this with the needs of people for whom logging is not just their economic livelihood but is also a family legacy - it’s in their blood. We see this conflict play out at the community level and also through the marriage of Rich and Colleen Gunderson. He’s a tree topper whose father and grandfather died on the job. She’s a woman whose desire to have a second baby is thwarted by constant miscarriages and whose volunteer work as a lay midwife has made her aware of the number of still births and birth defects in their small community. Things that are well-known now were not common knowledge 45 years ago, meaning many people were sceptical of claims that chemical sprays could damage their health, didn’t value tress except as the source of timber, and were willing to tolerate environmental consequences like landslides. I think the author did a great job of taking the reader back to that time, when attitudes were very different than they are today - when views and knowledge that are more mainstream were fringe and viewed with scepticism. Another aspect that was done well, chillingly well, was the portrayal of the power of the logging industry and the threats, intimidation and violence companies used to quell any uncomfortable questions or opposition. This is a slow moving book, possibly a little long, and one where it takes a while for the threads of the story to really come together. However, I thought it was well-crafted, the characters and their problems compelling, the community and the work of the loggers richly depicted. My time and patience were well rewarded.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Infertility, and Miscarriage
Moderate: Car accident
keepreadingbooks's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
So, this book. I loved it. It’s best described as Migrations, but in the past and with trees (that’s not an apt description at all, but it’s what I’ve got), and – for once – we see the environmental story through the eyes of the “bad guys”, the loggers harvesting old-growth redwoods in 1970s California. I loved it much more than I did a book like The Overstory, which did the opposite and focused on the ones fighting to save what can be saved of our forests and should have been right up my alley, but it became mightily preachy for me, and that’s not my thing. My thing is morally grey characters, a narrative emphasising the fact that the world is rarely, if ever, black and white. And that’s what Damnation Spring does to absolute perfection. Was it conflicting rooting for a guy who plans to harvest a grove of ancient redwood trees? Yes. Did I simultaneously hope he would be able to do it, while also hoping he could make money some other way? Yes. But oh, isn’t it marvellous how stories like this can broaden our minds and make us see things from a new perspective, forcing us to acknowledge the people on the other side?
Some have criticised the heavy use of logger lingo in this book. For me, though, it felt natural. Some things I didn’t quite understand, but that’s okay, the context did the job, and in my view it didn’t hurt the story at all. On the contrary, it painted a pretty good picture of a community of people who live and breathe logging, who know every single detail of the job and of the environment they live in, because that’s what they’ve been doing for generations, and that’s what’s keeping them alive. In all honesty, it would have felt unnatural if a book like this wasn’t littered with logging slang.
Some have criticised the heavy use of logger lingo in this book. For me, though, it felt natural. Some things I didn’t quite understand, but that’s okay, the context did the job, and in my view it didn’t hurt the story at all. On the contrary, it painted a pretty good picture of a community of people who live and breathe logging, who know every single detail of the job and of the environment they live in, because that’s what they’ve been doing for generations, and that’s what’s keeping them alive. In all honesty, it would have felt unnatural if a book like this wasn’t littered with logging slang.
It’s a fairly slow book, especially the first 150 pages, but I love this kind of slow. The characterisation is excellent, the plot builds and develops intriguingly, it’s suspenseful, gritty, vivid, educational, timely, beautiful, heart-breaking all in one. It’s a story of man’s havoc-wreaking ways, of greed and desire, of community, for better and worse, and not least of a family and its hardships.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Car accident, and Miscarriage
Minor: Suicidal thoughts
maregred's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-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
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Miscarriage, Abortion, Infertility, Pregnancy, Alcohol, Cancer, and Death
Moderate: Animal death, Car accident, Child death, Toxic relationship, Adult/minor relationship, Infidelity, Alcoholism, and Racism
Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Racism, and Xenophobia