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A review by gizmo_gadget
Too Much Lip by Melissa Lucashenko
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Holy shit.
This book would have been five stars if it wasn’t for:
a) Steve (somehow #1 most hateable character despite only being portrayed in a positive light)
b) The fact I read Edenglassie first, and Lucashenko touches on some topics surrounding what it means to be Indigenous with more nuance and resolution there
c) The portrayal of domestic abuse was far too matter of fact for my traumatised ass, and getting through the middle of the book, where tensions were at their highest and everything was painfully up in the air, was a slog. It was too realistic for its own good, 10/10 hopeless drudgery, 0/10 revelatory or novel content for me
That being said, the end 100 pages of the book were fucking amazing. Trauma and all. Lucashenko has her satisfying-but-unresolved endings down to an art (though once again, slight preference for Edenglassie), particularly in the sense that all the book’s previous symbolism is braided together, and provides that final little shove that develops the characters to their final form.
I appreciated that the full cast of family characters showed the range of traumas and trauma responses that can come out of a fucked situation, and very maturely avoided hoisting unwarranted blame on the shoulders of individuals subject to the Trauma Cycle™️ and its intergenerational implications. I also enjoyed that the main character has like . the least character development out of her close family. She clearly has some Shit To Sort Out. But it would have sullied the flow of the book to pull her out of the role she was serving as the audience’s eyes to the whole-of-family conflict (emphasis on whole). The novel is not about any one person, but the web of intricately spun tensions that had weaved itself over lifetimes of successive dispossession.
Finally: Elvis’ demise made me sob like a fucking baby and if I had to pick a most important book character it would be him. Thank you for your sacrifice, Elvis :((
This book would have been five stars if it wasn’t for:
a) Steve (somehow #1 most hateable character despite only being portrayed in a positive light)
b) The fact I read Edenglassie first, and Lucashenko touches on some topics surrounding what it means to be Indigenous with more nuance and resolution there
c) The portrayal of domestic abuse was far too matter of fact for my traumatised ass, and getting through the middle of the book, where tensions were at their highest and everything was painfully up in the air, was a slog. It was too realistic for its own good, 10/10 hopeless drudgery, 0/10 revelatory or novel content for me
That being said, the end 100 pages of the book were fucking amazing. Trauma and all. Lucashenko has her satisfying-but-unresolved endings down to an art (though once again, slight preference for Edenglassie), particularly in the sense that all the book’s previous symbolism is braided together, and provides that final little shove that develops the characters to their final form.
I appreciated that the full cast of family characters showed the range of traumas and trauma responses that can come out of a fucked situation, and very maturely avoided hoisting unwarranted blame on the shoulders of individuals subject to the Trauma Cycle™️ and its intergenerational implications. I also enjoyed that the main character has like . the least character development out of her close family. She clearly has some Shit To Sort Out. But it would have sullied the flow of the book to pull her out of the role she was serving as the audience’s eyes to the whole-of-family conflict (emphasis on whole). The novel is not about any one person, but the web of intricately spun tensions that had weaved itself over lifetimes of successive dispossession.
Finally: Elvis’ demise made me sob like a fucking baby and if I had to pick a most important book character it would be him. Thank you for your sacrifice, Elvis :((