sportie55 's review for:

We Can Never Leave This Place by Eric LaRocca

1.0

dark

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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I'm honestly just very confused. I don't really know what I just read but I don't feel strongly about it at all. It was kinda gross but that's about the extent of it. I get that it's supposed to illustrate grief, abandonment and maltreatment of Mara but all of the explorations of it felt very surface-level. I still want to read "THINGS HAVE GOTTEN WORSE SINCE WE LAST SPOKE" but this one was really disappointing. It felt like the intention was to shock (kind of?) and unsettle the reader but I unfortunately don't think that was enough to keep the book afloat and was mostly just befuddled and kind of lost for most of it. The cover is gorgeous but this one reminded me that I really need to stop being enticed by books solely because they're visually stunning. The writing was also pretentious in a way that I found heavy-handed and unnecessary and somehow dragged a less than 100 page book.