Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty

11 reviews

bookishevy's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful informative lighthearted mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

The title of this read had me expecting a reservation full of ghouls, but this was way better. 

Set in the Penobscot Indian Nation reservation in Maine, the 12 stories are narrated in first-person by David, later known as Dee, who moves to the reservation with his mother after his parents' divorce. The tales oscillate between young David and adult Dee and feature a rotating cast of characters in the community. 

David unearths a jar that holds an ancient curse that causes his family to unravel; Dee discovers his friend Fellis passed out in the freezing woods while trying to swindle a drug dealer; David's grandmother suffers from Alzheimer’s, often mistaking him for her dead brother; Dee and Fellis attempt to rob the tribal museum for valuable root clubs.  

Generational trauma and addiction are the main themes of this read. David starts smoking at a young age, and Dee is sick, reliant on methadone while he and Fellis drink and chase Klonopin "pins" and think up schemes to score large sums of money. 

Dee and Fellis are grown men still depending on their mothers for support. Dee is coping with the past while figuring out his place in the world. His older sister Paige also struggles with substance use and finding her own way. Like many addicts, they're not present as the substances have rendered them zombified. Who can blame them for wanting to escape their surroundings? 

With depressing topics like poverty, loss, grief, substance abuse, violence, racism, miscarriage, sexual assault, death of a child, Alzheimer’s disease, death of the elderly, and animal death, you're going to feel all the feels. You'll even laugh because Talty uses his identity to give life to these stories, and, like Black Americans, Native Americans must find the comedy in tragedy to survive. 

Darrel Dennis' narration lends authenticity to the struggles and spiritual beliefs of the characters that made me empathize with them. 

Talty shows that what the disenfranchised stand to inherit from previous generations is scarier than any horror film.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death and Violence

Moderate: Addiction, Miscarriage, and Sexual assault

Minor: Animal death

mercerhanau's review against another edition

dark reflective 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

2.75

I started listenings to the audiobook on a friend’s recommendation (can't remember who?) without actually reading the back-of-book-type introduction at all. I think I went into it expecting something more supernatural/horror, which is not exactly what this book delivers (in the usual way). I set myself up for genre disappointment, so take my review with a grain of salt.

It’s a reflective set of stories, looking at slices of life from the narrator as a child, teenager, and mid/late 20s, looking back from later in life. Lots of drinking and suffering from drug addition, wanting to get clean. Depressing, occasionally funny, a LOT of scenes with varying degrees of nausea, dry heaving, and vomit. Unpleasant. But there are also scenes of tenderness that help flesh out the characters.

The title (and a couple references to zombies) encouraged me to look for what could be “horror” or the supernatural in stories that otherwise feel like a fictionalized memoir. Animal presences serve as metaphors that connect interpersonal struggles to the natural world in all its power, chaos, and… stenches.

More thoughts on real-life "horror": SPOILERS / Content Warnings

Horrors of caterpillar corpse carpets, decaying snapping turtle smell, miscarriage, child deaths, postpartum depression, having a dead twin (like a teratoma?), feeling responsible (sort of) for a sick infant’s death while still a child yourself, social services knocking incessantly at the door while home alone with one’s sister’s baby (feels like a zombie movie), dementia resurrecting ghosts/memories of long-dead relatives, witnessing physical and sexual violence, car crash, feeling disconnected from one’s body and mind in the throes of drug addition and withdrawal.

Feels like an important story to tell. Nuanced representation of a deeply interconnected Native community and family. The writing style and characters didn’t resonate with me, and that’s okay! I definitely see why other people love the book.

Cf. / Reminded me of themes in…
- Wellness, by Natan Hill:

psychologically shifting stories and guilty uncertainty about what really happened during a childhood tragedy.

- The Only Good Indians, by Stephen Graham Jones:

Indigenous perspective on spooky pregnancy stuff. The horror of nature (esp. animal-related). Losing contact with indigenous knowledge that might have helped prevent/dispel the horror.

- Every Drop Is a Man's Nightmare, by Megan Kamalei Kakimoto:

More spooky reproductive/fertility stuff, whether supernatural or just things that happen to human bodies that aren’t talked about thanks to patriarchy keeping reproduction a mysterious, taboo subject. Complex feelings about family dynamics, both tender and cruel.

- This Thing Between Us, by Gus Moreno:

curses, generational trauma, feeling haunted by lost loved ones and/or forces beyond our understanding. Losing one’s mind a lil bit. Gore. Technology running amok, sometimes in subtle ways: Grammy’s car radio turns on by itself, like the Itza (Echo Dot equivalent) in TTBU.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, and Vomit

Moderate: Child death, Chronic illness, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Blood, Dementia, and Car accident

Minor: Animal death, Infertility, Racial slurs, Sexual assault, Medical content, and Pregnancy

readingwithkaitlyn's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Animal death, Body shaming, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Pedophilia, Racism, Grief, and Murder

Moderate: Infidelity and Car accident

Minor: Child death and Rape

Neglect, fraud, MMIWG2S, drowning, intergenerational trauma, baby addicted to methodone, postpartum depression,

tessatalksbooks's review against another edition

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Infertility, Miscarriage, and Dementia

sdupont's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective 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? Yes

3.75

This book packs some heavy material. The short stories are all interconnected as they have the same characters across different time points (though not written in sequential order). I usually struggle to get into short story compilations and that was true for this book as well especially with the heavier content. I wish the stories were a little more separate content/character wise or that the book was written as a continuous novel. That being said the characters have a lot of depth and I found myself wanting to see what would happen next. I still would recommend giving this a read though!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child death, and Drug abuse

Moderate: Alcoholism, Miscarriage, and Racism

Minor: Animal death and Sexual violence

alyssasaurus's review against another edition

dark sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal death, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

sarah984's review against another edition

dark funny reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.0

This is a collection of short stories about incidents in the life of one character on a reservation in Maine throughout his life. Some of the stories were better than others (the stories about the friends messing around kind of blended together for me, but the titular story was incredible) and they're told out of chronological order for a reason I couldn't really grasp aside from putting the best story at the end.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child death, Drug use, Vomit, Grief, and Alcohol

Moderate: Mental illness, Miscarriage, Racism, Sexual assault, Medical content, Dementia, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal death, Cancer, Child abuse, Racial slurs, Toxic relationship, Blood, Stalking, Car accident, and Pregnancy

uglypopcorn's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny reflective 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? Yes

5.0

Beautifully crafted - I'm still thinking about this book days after finishing.

The characters are so vivid & real, I was looking forward to my reading time just to hangout with them in my mind. I found myself laughing at the little actions that shaped these complicated, flawed beings. But also, I felt all the twists and turns of sadness and anger in my gut. Development occurs with fluidity and grit - and not in the direction you might expect.

I'm amazed these chapters were published at different dates. They weave together so seamlessly!

Hands down one of my favorite novels. I want more from this author. I *need* more.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Racial slurs, and Violence

Minor: Sexual violence

internationalreads's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad fast-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Car accident, Abandonment, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

taylorjayne's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Miscarriage, Violence, Grief, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child death, Infertility, Racism, Sexual assault, Violence, Car accident, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Alcoholism, Animal death, Cursing, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Racism, Terminal illness, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Dementia, Pregnancy, Alcohol, and Classism