Reviews tagging 'Racism'

The Perishing by Natashia Deón

16 reviews

caffeinatedvibe's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.0

EDIT: After a few months now, I’ve bumped this down to a 3. I may even eventually move it to a 2 but for now I did enjoy the story and then concept but overall it was a little underwhelming especially with how it had been advertised. I think I had been expecting more of an adventurous plot that went into the magical realness more which is what hindered my love for this book. I may still recommend this, but I will be giving my own summary of the book. It’s definitely more of a historical fiction and a bit of coming of age with the overall plot and less about the magic of what’s going on. Which is okay I just wish I wasn’t expecting the magic. I could see this easily becoming a many part series that could take place in many timelines maybe even multiple povs which could help my rating of this book if I knew it were the background info for a more expansive universe but as a stand alone I was left wanting more. 

I liked the concept, the multiple perspective from the same person but different times, and the mystery behind it all. But I don’t think it satisfies me as much I would have liked. I definitely enjoyed it and would recommend it to friends I just felt like it ended abruptly right as I thought maybe the heart of the story was beginning. 

This may not be spoilers, but I just want to be cautious. I’ve seen some reviews not love Sarah’s perspective since it doesn’t become relevant until the end and for the most part I think I disagree. I really enjoyed hearing her talk about her experiences as the future self looking back and I think her story helps explain what’s going on with Lou. With that said though, everything she says is very vague and a lot of it you don’t understand until the end of the book so maybe it’d be worth a reread, but there were chapters that were hard to get through when Lou’s story was getting exciting and it felt like Sarah wasn’t adding too much to the plot. I know there were a lot of things that had to be vague in order to not spoil anything from Lou’s perspective but I think even a few callbacks at the end from Sarah’s perspective that would reveal more specifics would be nice so I wasn’t having to guess what might’ve happened. I prefer books that don’t give me all the answers but I also would’ve liked just a few answers. Like do I assume she killed her brother?? Also was confused by that plot line because the time jumping gets muddled so in that moment when he was explaining his backstory I could visualize where and who they were. There was also the plot of the woman being thrown in the water and that’s why Lou’s was called there but it was never actually explained, unless I missed something which is possible, so overall I just didn't understand why/what was going on. It’s still above 3 for me though slightly because I did enjoy the story I liked Lou’s journey for the most part. Mainly I just felt unsatisfied since I picked it up thinking it was about time traveling or some kind of magic of sorts and then it spent most of the story being about a girl just trying to figure out her life and who she is which would have been okay if the book description wasn’t heavily focused on the immortal aspect.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Child death, Death, Racism, and Murder

Child death

a boy gets hit by a car. The accident itself isn’t graphic and it’s told through a 3rd person account but does describe mom being inside when told, dad was a firefighter that showed on scene and there is a funeral scene

Domestic Violence

This is a brief story told in one of the chapters so not a major part of the book and could be easily skipped. But we are told a story about a woman that was eventually drowned in a lake by her husband while she was pregnant. Her name is also referenced at another point in the book though briefly

Death

Both content warnings have been about specific deaths that have happened, but in general death is talked about a lot in this book. If that is something that is triggering then this might not be the best book. The main character is a journalist and for a good portion of book she covers only deaths like the obituary pages. She mentions visiting family members to be able to share their loved ones stories. Some might be simply natural deaths or car crashes etc. the point does try to focus on sharing their stores and who they were rather than gruesome details though. There are a few funerals of people she’s knows.

Suicide Ideation

This is more of a storyline that is seen in the future perspective. There does seem to be a couple failed attempts, but in general just the thought of not being able to truely die since she basically gets reincarnated every time. I believe at this point she has been alive at least for a few hundred years if not more

caseythereader's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Bullying, Confinement, Death, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Suicide, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

mandkips's review against another edition

challenging mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs and Racism

Moderate: Gore and Violence

Minor: Death

oatmilkdyke's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

A book that explores many lives and the way our souls experience time. I loved the author's imagery and beautiful use of language. The story was reflective, and relevant to the time we are living now (with subtle references to COVID-19). I had trouble focusing and piecing some parts of the story together, especially with the climax. Definitely want to re-read to fully grasp this story! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Racial slurs, Racism, and Death of parent

Moderate: Gore, Slavery, Violence, Murder, and War

beanjoles's review

reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

A tedious read, which is a shame because the summary made it seem very cool. I got way more out of reading the summary than the entire book tbh. 

The best part of this book is the expressive and interesting writing style. Characterization was not very good — there was a lot of Telling and next to no Showing. That isn’t unexpected in a novel that depends on first-person narration, but at many points I felt like I was reading Lou’s collected essays about her life experiences rather than going through the experiences with her. Lou constantly seems disconnected from her actions and environment, and this makes it difficult for a reader to care about them either. 

The dispassionate descriptions of her day-to-day life were boring. There were teases of interesting things to come (I kept waiting for Sarah and Lou to have a more obvious overall aside from

Sarah being future-Lou

) but this never really paid off. The last 20% of the novel finally had some things happen, but I didn’t feel they were well explained or explored. This would have been a much more compelling story if some of these elements were mixed in with the base story about Lou. 

Finally, it felt like there were a lot of bits of modern commentary that, while important, were jarringly out of place in 1930s LA. I’d have expected them to come from Sarah rather than Lou. The result is that I never felt like Lou was an authentic character. This is one area in the imbalance between showing and telling was particularly evident. Had we seen Lou develop her opinions and positions in response to events it would have been more interesting and realistic. 

I probably wouldn’t recommend this book to others, but I wouldn’t rule out reading more by Natasha Deon. She’s clearly a talented writer and the concept was there. This story just wasn’t executed well. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, and Xenophobia

isabelgalupo's review against another edition

emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. I got frustrated with the small, sometimes repetitive scope of the main 1930’s story because of the larger implications of immortal life; I wanted to know a lot more about the main characters others lives. I also found the sci-fi exposition/rules of the world info dump at the end of the novel to be really rushed because we focused so much on the day to day, super grounded world for the majority of the book leading up to the conclusion. I get that focusing on the “mundane” aspects of Lou’s lifetime was *the point* of the novel and sometimes that was effective and thought provoking, but it felt like the author wanted to have her cake and eat it to by interspersing narration from the future, and then not paying off any of the information she presented in these sections. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism and Xenophobia

Moderate: Racial slurs and Religious bigotry