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A review by elenajohansen
Land of Love and Drowning by Tiphanie Yanique
Did not finish book. Stopped at 21%.
I didn't actually mean to pick up another magical realism book right after being disappointed with All the Crooked Saints, but I gave it an honest try anyway. This work was clearly taking much more time to develop its characters, which I appreciate, but quite early on, pedophilia reared its ugly head, and that's a stumbling block I've had with more than one other, more classic, magical realism novel.
But I kept going for a while anyway because the story wasn't painting pedophilia as normal or its perpetrator as a good person; I know that's a low bar but I've had to DNF books for not clearing it. I'm willing to read a book that explores the effects that kind of relationship has on the victim of it, and that seemed like a strong possibility here. Then, the specter of incest showed up as well--the foreshadowing is incredibly strong that one of the sisters is going to become romantically/sexually involved with her (unknown to her) half-brother, and I'm just not here for it.
But I kept going for a while anyway because the story wasn't painting pedophilia as normal or its perpetrator as a good person; I know that's a low bar but I've had to DNF books for not clearing it. I'm willing to read a book that explores the effects that kind of relationship has on the victim of it, and that seemed like a strong possibility here. Then, the specter of incest showed up as well--the foreshadowing is incredibly strong that one of the sisters is going to become romantically/sexually involved with her (unknown to her) half-brother, and I'm just not here for it.