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A review by hollyk
Bad Things Happen Here by Rebecca Barrow
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
I think that there are a lot of really good elements explored in this book, but when they're combined it ended up quite messy. I'll try to go over some of the things that didn't work here:
-No closure:only one death is "solved," and to make matters worse, when it is solved, Luca immediately abandons any notion of trying to get justice/answers for any of the other victims
-Shallow explorations of deeper topics:like the police force blaming Whitney for a supposed drug habit, suspecting Luca because she's a fat, Black girl, white privilege/white people's stories being believed, parents not understanding mental health, being closeted in a homogenous society where standing out is bad
what happens then is that this book ends up with some great lines of prose, but they're overshadowed by the mentions of super serious topics that don't get the same treatment as say, Luca's musings on love. Not to say that every book about the Black experience has to deal with pain and suffering, but this book brought topics up only to drop them fairly quickly.
One thing this book nailed, though, was mental health rep. Luca doesn't outright say it, but she does seem to have a form of OCD--and it's depicted accurately!! I don't want to armchair diagnose her, but the intrusive thoughts/obsessions were very accurate to situations I've had, as someone with OCD.
I wanted to like this book more, but it was just not for me.
-No closure:
-Shallow explorations of deeper topics:
what happens then is that this book ends up with some great lines of prose, but they're overshadowed by the mentions of super serious topics that don't get the same treatment as say, Luca's musings on love. Not to say that every book about the Black experience has to deal with pain and suffering, but this book brought topics up only to drop them fairly quickly.
One thing this book nailed, though, was mental health rep. Luca doesn't outright say it, but she does seem to have a form of OCD--and it's depicted accurately!! I don't want to armchair diagnose her, but the intrusive thoughts/obsessions were very accurate to situations I've had, as someone with OCD.
I wanted to like this book more, but it was just not for me.