Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson

20 reviews

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. 

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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

cass_lit's review against another edition

1.5

Before I say anything else about this: THERE IS NO EXCUSE TO USE THE R-WORD. You can make it clear that a child is being bullied in a million other ways. Reading the r-word just once will absolutely ruin my experience and opinion of a book, but Ash Davison uses it FOUR TIMES. ONE WASN’T EVEN BULLYING, it’s a kid *thinking* about his mom!!!! Absolutely not necessary and, in my opinion, reflects poorly on the author and the book. 

Now, for the rest of my review:

I hated this. I wanted to DNF, but I also wanted to be able to rate this low and explain for anyone else considering reading it. I need everyone to know that my review is fully informed. But then I decided my sanity was more important; I decided to DNF and felt great about it. Since I had decided not to continue, I went to read others’ reviews and *one* on here said if you get past the first quarter of the book then it’s so worth it. I was excited for this book, I bought this book, I wanted to like it! Now, I was already at 37%, but I thought maybe the reviewer was just estimating. I picked Damnation Spring back up, upped my audio speed a bit (not easy, the narrators are definitely trying to give rural logging community), and tried again.

Unfortunately, it never got better for me. As I said, I hated this. I did not like the writing style to begin with, and as soon as the r-word mentions started I *hated* the writing style. 

Now to my more substantive issues with the story.

• All the adults suck. Colleen bugged me more than Rich (SO whiny), but god they both sucked. You’re adults. Communicate. Or do something. Anything. We didn’t even get to read about the infidelity for something fun, it got like two mentions. I hated Ridge but god Colleen just leave him. Also, fuck you, Daniel (and that’s coming from an environmentalist). 
• The POV switches to Chub felt not super important and random and were kinda just as boring as C & R’s (more understandable for him because he’s five though). Random sister POV there at the end too?
• The “mystery” or conflict doesn’t start until 45-50%. I didn’t even know there was a mystery or that this would be the plot point it became until those reviews during the period I tried to DNF. All the first half did for me was make me hate everyone in this town so… basically nothing. 
• An absolutely individual, personal issue: I work in the environmental field; I started this while at a conference with other environmental professionals expecting it to be a fictionalized Silent Spring/Dark Waters (Exposure). I was sorely disappointed. 
• Real quote from one of the adults in this story: “fifteen’s old enough to breed her.” Also unnecessary: dog murder. 
• The end. Again, I didn’t care about these characters so it didn’t impact me too much emotionally, it just felt traumatic and draining. Writing a sad book doesn’t make you profound. 
• Finally, it was Way Too Long. So long. So much of it was dragged out incessantly, but other parts were just completely unnecessary. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Ableism, Death, Child death, Bullying, and Violence

Moderate: Animal death and Death of parent

Minor: Abortion

joclousing's review

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage and Violence

Minor: Abortion and Death of parent

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

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

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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

ssternle's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Infertility, Miscarriage, and Pregnancy

Minor: Cancer, Child death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Alcoholism, Abortion, and Medical content

jennneely82's review against another edition

challenging informative sad slow-paced

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

3.5

I enjoyed this book more than I expected! There were parts of the book that drug on, but the overall story and plot development was interesting and informative. I can see how people from a logging community would enjoy this novel. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage

Moderate: Death of parent

Minor: Suicide

miriamshira's review

dark sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Injury/Injury detail, Infertility, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Pregnancy, Death, and Animal death

Moderate: Death of parent

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

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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