Scan barcode
A review by khopeisz
Fruit of the Dead by Rachel Lyon
2.75
If anyone comes across this, please note I’m a rambling reviewer, I also gave up on hiding the spoilers lol. So spoiler warning.
Contrary to other reviews I’ve seen, the writing style was the saving grace for me. It propelled me forward into a story that i ultimately did not enjoy. One thing, the author does love to itemize to the point of excess, to the point of holding me back. Give me one simple, lush description of an event and that’s all I need to be immersed. A grocery list of descriptions is overwhelming and removes me.
The mother’s chapters were more compelling, until they weren’t. The point at whichshe is informed by Ian that she lost her job was really a DNF point for me, and yet I persisted lol. It rubbed me the wrong way; I get a mother’s obsession, but not telling your job you’re in a crisis and then berating a colleague who attempted to help you, and also berating their more forward thinking ideas, detached me from her as a character. the mother’s downward spiral, I felt, was played kinda blah for me. I did not know who she was outside of an obsessive mom and then, following the conversation with Ian, an uptight b word. I became ambivalent to her. If her cutting off her hair was supposed to signal something to me, I didn’t care.
Additionally, I would have been more interested if the mother had done actual detective work instead of Google-alerting herself from place to place. The clues she finds of her daughter’s whereabouts are always just given to her. Like, what influenced this particular woman, overly mindful of carcinogens,
to eat at a diner of all places? How coincidental was it that the family who took her in also attended Rolo’s ex-wife’s church? It was all too neat for me.
I am exercising the most amount of objectivity I can for the daughter, Cory. As I have been 18 and have unreasonably resented my mother for merely everything and nothing. But damn, reading this on the page was so frustrating. At some point you’re just like, “surely your home has to be better than THIS bullshit!” and “for the love of god call your mother!!!” Cory has few redemptive qualities, which is a frustrating characterization of her. If she is loving and kind, her low-self esteem and her self-loathing override these at almost every opportunity. And I get where these qualities stem from, it’s just frustrating that we rarely have scenes of her as a person, enjoying things that she likes, perhaps endearing things that she does to cope with her traumatic past. The first scene of her was well done, but we quickly lose the thread to her endearing qualities.
I have nothing to say about Rolo. But I both read this book and listened to it on audio, and it might be because I’m nearing thirty, but I would like to ask audio book narrators to stop affecting voices for characters of the opposite sex or an alternate age. I felt like I was in fourth grade listening to my teacher. I liked that style of narration then, but not now. Very unserious lol.
The ending was curious to me. Where I hoped to be moved a la Mona Awad’s Rouge, I felt nothing for the mother daughter reunion. And that’s why I wanted to read the book in the first place. I felt that there were sentimental meditations on motherhood and daughterhood, but they came from two ultimately unlikeabke characters, so it feels wrong to agree with their outlooks. I don’t mind an unlikeable character, but redeem them more my god. Give them a moment in grace. Also, the end to me felt like a non-ending. I get Cory’s new drug addiction, but realistlically, would her mom not just send her to rehab for that? Also, why would Rolo push this drug on her when that’s how Kelly died (which did she? That whole thing confused me). If it was for coercion, he didn’t need to do that! Cory came to the island of her own accord. She didn’t need hardcore drugs to stay, but I guess she does when you’re trying to abide by a myth in which the protagonist descends to hell once a year or whatever.
As a Black™️ lol, Virgil’s outburst annoyed me. It felt cheap to use the only black character to invigorate moralism into the white character. Like, other books have been there done that. Get a new idea. Also, the whole drug storyline was just too loose for me. Despite its constant use and references, it sort of existed out in the hazy ether until Virgil brings some realism into the moment, which is probably why his outburst annoyed me more than swayed me. Why leave it to the only black character to do this?
Also, random, but is this a back-door Jesus book? I rarely read books where the Christians come across as well as they do in this one. I’m both paranoid and refreshed by this. Yet this juxtaposed with the misandry is interesting. I mean, I am also healing a very fractured outlook I have of men (as much as one can heal without tarping over survival instincts) but boy these ladies are terrified of men. I get why they are but philosophically it goes unchallenged.
In all, and all and all lol, from the blurb I was hoping to be moved by a book on the complex linkages of mothers and daughters, and absolutely did not get that. This book took me a day to read however, and for that I thank it.
Contrary to other reviews I’ve seen, the writing style was the saving grace for me. It propelled me forward into a story that i ultimately did not enjoy. One thing, the author does love to itemize to the point of excess, to the point of holding me back. Give me one simple, lush description of an event and that’s all I need to be immersed. A grocery list of descriptions is overwhelming and removes me.
The mother’s chapters were more compelling, until they weren’t. The point at which
Additionally, I would have been more interested if the mother had done actual detective work instead of Google-alerting herself from place to place. The clues she finds of her daughter’s whereabouts are always just given to her. Like, what influenced this particular woman, overly mindful of carcinogens,
to eat at a diner of all places? How coincidental was it that the family who took her in also attended Rolo’s ex-wife’s church? It was all too neat for me.
I am exercising the most amount of objectivity I can for the daughter, Cory. As I have been 18 and have unreasonably resented my mother for merely everything and nothing. But damn, reading this on the page was so frustrating. At some point you’re just like, “surely your home has to be better than THIS bullshit!” and “for the love of god call your mother!!!” Cory has few redemptive qualities, which is a frustrating characterization of her. If she is loving and kind, her low-self esteem and her self-loathing override these at almost every opportunity. And I get where these qualities stem from, it’s just frustrating that we rarely have scenes of her as a person, enjoying things that she likes, perhaps endearing things that she does to cope with her traumatic past. The first scene of her was well done, but we quickly lose the thread to her endearing qualities.
I have nothing to say about Rolo. But I both read this book and listened to it on audio, and it might be because I’m nearing thirty, but I would like to ask audio book narrators to stop affecting voices for characters of the opposite sex or an alternate age. I felt like I was in fourth grade listening to my teacher. I liked that style of narration then, but not now. Very unserious lol.
The ending was curious to me. Where I hoped to be moved a la Mona Awad’s Rouge, I felt nothing for the mother daughter reunion. And that’s why I wanted to read the book in the first place. I felt that there were sentimental meditations on motherhood and daughterhood, but they came from two ultimately unlikeabke characters, so it feels wrong to agree with their outlooks. I don’t mind an unlikeable character, but redeem them more my god. Give them a moment in grace. Also, the end to me felt like a non-ending. I get Cory’s new drug addiction, but realistlically, would her mom not just send her to rehab for that? Also, why would Rolo push this drug on her when that’s how Kelly died (which did she? That whole thing confused me). If it was for coercion, he didn’t need to do that! Cory came to the island of her own accord. She didn’t need hardcore drugs to stay, but I guess she does when you’re trying to abide by a myth in which the protagonist descends to hell once a year or whatever.
As a Black™️ lol, Virgil’s outburst annoyed me. It felt cheap to use the only black character to invigorate moralism into the white character. Like, other books have been there done that. Get a new idea. Also, the whole drug storyline was just too loose for me. Despite its constant use and references, it sort of existed out in the hazy ether until Virgil brings some realism into the moment, which is probably why his outburst annoyed me more than swayed me. Why leave it to the only black character to do this?
Also, random, but is this a back-door Jesus book? I rarely read books where the Christians come across as well as they do in this one. I’m both paranoid and refreshed by this. Yet this juxtaposed with the misandry is interesting. I mean, I am also healing a very fractured outlook I have of men (as much as one can heal without tarping over survival instincts) but boy these ladies are terrified of men. I get why they are but philosophically it goes unchallenged.
In all, and all and all lol, from the blurb I was hoping to be moved by a book on the complex linkages of mothers and daughters, and absolutely did not get that. This book took me a day to read however, and for that I thank it.