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nehaanna's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
I’m not entirely sure what this book is attempting to accomplish. This is literary fiction with a speculative aspect and a fantasy-esque twist that fails to make any sense until the last 50 pages and is so poorly strung together. This book fails to draw the reader in, preferring to use complicated time jumps, stream of consciousness type writing, and sloppy philosophical waxing to make some point. Sprinkled along the way are references to historical injustices towards minority populations with reference to recent historical events of the 2020s. However, the social commentary is poorly done in my opinion. Nothing in this book seems to be executed well, everything falls abysmally short of the author’s well-meaning intentions for what this book could have been.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Alcoholism, Blood, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, War, and Pandemic/Epidemic