Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward

12 reviews

noladawnreads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Racism, Violence, and Grief

Moderate: Rape and Confinement

Minor: Incest

booksbeyondthebinary's review against another edition

challenging emotional sad medium-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? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Slavery, and Grief

Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, and Confinement

Minor: Incest

ktdakotareads's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Bullying, Grief, Confinement, Physical abuse, Slavery, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Sexual assault and Infertility

serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

 Jesmyn Ward is a fantastic storyteller and wordsmith who can do no wrong in my book. This exploration of slavery through the eyes of Annis is both beautiful - the prose - and heart wrenching - many of the plot details. Slavery is a topic that has been explored extensively in fiction yet Let Us Descend feels fresh and original. One reason is the use of Dante’s The Inferno as a reference for the hell Annis was forced to descend into, which provided a powerful new lens to consider the experiences of the enslaved. Another was the story’s female focus, particularly the mother-daughter bond and the link to female ancestors. I was struck by the way Annis’s mother expressed her love by trying to equip Annis for survival both physically and spiritually. As the novel progressed it became clearer how essential the memory of her mother’s love and their spirituality was for Annis. Grief features prominently in this story. It’s really visceral, practically tangible at times, undoubtedly a reflection of the huge personal loss Ward suffered while writing this novel as well as a testament to her talent as a writer. We all know that words matter and Ward’s choice of “sire” for the enslaver who biologically fathered Annis struck me as a telling and apt choice. It guides the reader to think about the conception of children like her in a particular way. All in all a brilliant masterpiece. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Slavery, and Violence

Moderate: Rape and Confinement

dulceflecha's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Racism, Rape, and Death of parent

Moderate: Grief

qqjj's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark hopeful sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, Slavery, Torture, Rape, Grief, Violence, Body horror, Confinement, Gaslighting, Physical abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Murder

emzireads's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief and Slavery

Minor: Rape

kirstym25's review against another edition

dark emotional medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Death, and Grief

Moderate: Sexual assault and Colonisation

caseythereader's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

4.25

Thanks to Scribner Books for the free copy of this book.

 - LET US DESCEND takes the framework of Dante's INFERNO and applies it to the story of a young enslaved girl. As you might expect, this book is dark and often horrific read, but in Ward's hands the story gives us both the beauty and the pain of Annis, the people she encounters, and the landscape she inhabits.
- This book is a study in the many forms grief can take, both on personal and community-wide levels, born both out of pain and love.
- Personally, I wished for a little more detail on the spirits Annis encountered, but that might just be the sci-fi/fantasy reader in me, I always want more there. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gore, Alcohol, Animal death, Grief, Blood, Rape, Slavery, Child abuse, Child death, Death of parent, Excrement, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Vomit, Physical abuse, Violence, Trafficking, Pregnancy, and Suicidal thoughts

busyblackbookworm's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes

5.0

Jesmyn Ward is a national treasure, and so is this book.

Let Us Descend is a portrait of one woman’s descent into not just any Hell, but a Hell of [white] man’s own creation. During her descent, Annis contends with the spirits that vie for her devotion, yet who seem to let her and her people down at every turn, subjecting her to the cruel whims of white demons.

I’m not sure there’s much I can say about this book other than it should be on EVERYONE’S list. It captures the beauty of Black love and family, the wretched and calculated suffering that white people have inflicted upon our people, and the complicated nature of “freedom” that refugee, formerly enslaved Black folks living on the fringes (e.g., maroons) experienced. And it places pressure on the idea of Black resilience—we should not need to be resilient, to continually give ourselves to a world that seeks our destruction.

For my Black siblings, I do want to issue a word of caution, since this is an extremely heavy book that weighed on my spirit quite a bit as I read. I love Ward’s writing because she is SO remarkably talented—she is one of the best writers of our time—but I do space out my reads of her books because of how heavily they impact me.

So, tl;dr: please please please do yourself a favor and preorder+read this book.

Thank you so much to Scribner for the gifted ARC!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Racism, Sexual violence, Slavery, and Violence