Reviews with content warning for Child death - Blackwater La diga

Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Blackwater La diga by Michael McDowell

14 reviews

elixierbroth's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious reflective tense 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

2.5

As you might guess from the title, Perdido is getting a Levee in this book!
Most of the plot is about that, or family drama. Elinor does not want the Levee. Therefore, Mary-love thinks it's the best thing since sliced bread. The townsfolk would just like. To not be flooded again.

Elinor continues to be terribly obvious.
Mary-Love continues to be terribly obvious. The battle between them

river-monster versus monster-in-law

, continues, and I love it I really do. I'm reading this in parallel with Susan Forward/Donna Fraizer's Emotional Blackmail book.
And let me tell you it's a trip to combine them. Mary-love is just the most obvious specimen: most of adult characters in this could be a case study in that book all by themself.

It's good to see more behind Oscar and Sister in this book, and get to see in what ways they attempt to gain some power and personal freedom (spoilers: more similar methods than you'd think!). We meet some new characters in this as the Levee goes from planning stages to being put up and people sweep in and out of town. I actually texted a friend being like 'Oh I found out why there's
a skewered heart on the cover!'

Sister, Ivey, that's fucked up!

and then I was surprised at who died and who didn't at the end.
Michael McDowell writes really well in a 'time passed and this stuff happened' way, without leaving me feeling acutely that I'm being told not shown. The changes in the town and the river stay as important as the machinations of it's inhabitants.

Leading from that, towards the end we get a POV from Frances, Elinor and Oscar's second child, who is suddenly five years old! Where did the time go. But I mean that in an 'oh wow yes the time really did pass', like in real life, not in a 'blink so we as readers can skip the boring parts' kind of way.
Frances might be my favourite for the fully biased reason of 'she thinks like me for real' and also for having the most concrete reason to be interesting! I look forward to seeing how she develops as a character in book 3.

and wether or not she's gonna end up Et by her mama! It could happen.

Content Warnings