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A review by melbsreads
The Queen Is Dead by Stan Grant
challenging
emotional
sad
medium-paced
4.5
Trigger warnings: racism, racial slurs, systemic racism, colonialism, mental health
I knew this book would stab me in the feelings, given that all of Stan Grant's other books have stabbed me in the feelings. But I didn't quite expect it to hit me QUITE as hard as it did, given that it revolves so strongly around colonialism and the Queen's death.
And yet this hit me over and over again. I don't have a lot to say, particularly given that I'm writing this review on the night of the referendum's failure (despite finishing this book three weeks ago). So I'll just leave you with a quote from the book:
"There's a town where some of my grandmother's people live. A town by a driver, surrounded by fertile ground. The type of place where Australia was built and grew rich. Not far from this town, the oldest human remains in Australia were found. More than forty thousand years old. The man was estimated to have been in his seventies. Today Aboriginal men in this town have a life expectancy of less than forty.
Australia, you never cease to find new ways to break my heart."
That just...sums it up right there.
I knew this book would stab me in the feelings, given that all of Stan Grant's other books have stabbed me in the feelings. But I didn't quite expect it to hit me QUITE as hard as it did, given that it revolves so strongly around colonialism and the Queen's death.
And yet this hit me over and over again. I don't have a lot to say, particularly given that I'm writing this review on the night of the referendum's failure (despite finishing this book three weeks ago). So I'll just leave you with a quote from the book:
"There's a town where some of my grandmother's people live. A town by a driver, surrounded by fertile ground. The type of place where Australia was built and grew rich. Not far from this town, the oldest human remains in Australia were found. More than forty thousand years old. The man was estimated to have been in his seventies. Today Aboriginal men in this town have a life expectancy of less than forty.
Australia, you never cease to find new ways to break my heart."
That just...sums it up right there.