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ceilidh_ashcroft's review
- 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
3.5
Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Trafficking, Grief, and Murder
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Body horror, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Alcohol, and Classism
capmoons's review
Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Trafficking
bodybeingsoulstl's review
- 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
5.0
Please read the trigger warnings, this book discusses challenging topics around abuse of children, systemic racism, drugs, sexual assault/rape, and domestic abuse.
... are interested in paranormal folklore
... like a touch of realism in your thrillers
... believe in fate (but maybe not the romance kind)
As a person who enjoys the paranormal, I was intrigued by the Filipino folklore of aswang. While I did not anticipate the heaviness + seriousness this book contained, it drove me to consider and think about the larger systems at play that impact our people daily (not in an effective or supportive way) and how one entity (by chance or maybe fate) can bring some justice to the cruelties of the world.
Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Murder, and Abandonment
crystaldragonst's review against another edition
Graphic: Death, Rape, Sexual assault, and Xenophobia
writtenontheflyleaves's review
- 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? It's complicated
4.75
🌟🌟🌟🌟✨
❤️🔥 The plot: When Marina Salles is murdered by a serial killer, she transforms into an aswang: a vengeful spirit from her grandmother's Filipino folk tales. In the spirit's quest to avenge Marina's death, she flits through the minds and memories of the people in her life, including her killer, developing a deeper understanding of the forces that propelled her to this tragic end.
I found this book in @anovelideaphilly back in May and the blurb instantly drew me in. I love a ghost story, and I'm really interested in reading more Filipino storytelling (America Is Not The Heart by Elaine Castillo was a highlight of my 2022 reading!) The writing here didn't disappoint: it was lively and vivid and totally compulsive.
It was also brutal. The novel starts with a visceral description of a murder and runs the gamut from childhood sexual assault and abuse to institutionalisation and addiction.
I never know where I land on the idea of "gratuitous" suffering in novels. There is no shortage of suffering in the world, where and why do we draw the line in fiction, especially when it draws from real stories and injustices? What does it mean for us to say there is "too much" pain in a novel?
This book made me even less sure. The reader has no out, no happy ending to look forward to. Some of the scenes here are among the most distressing I've ever read. I wondered what I was supposed to do with all of it, what the purpose was.
Reflecting now, I think maybe that sense of being at a loss was the point, stretching your heart to hold the beauty and the horror together. The moments of tenderness in this book were as keen as the moments of pain, and neither cancelled out the other. It showed that a life is never one thing - not a waste, not ever purely tragic. There was hope here, but it did not allow you to cast off the pain, and I'll be thinking about it for a long time.
❤️🔥 Read it if you're not deterred by what I've said above, and liked 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World by Elif Shafak.
🚫 Pleeeease check trigger warnings before reading and avoid if you can't take heavy reading right now.
Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
katieb1034's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence
Moderate: Racism
Minor: Car accident
ka_cam's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Trafficking, Grief, Murder, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Medical content, Kidnapping, Alcohol, and Colonisation
Minor: Animal cruelty, Eating disorder, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Car accident, and Dysphoria
Additional content warnings: child welfare systems, group homes, explicit descriptions of rape of a child and other child sexual and physical abuse, explicit descriptions of sex in the context of sex workbella_cavicchi's review against another edition
- 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? It's complicated
4.5
Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Excrement, Medical content, Grief, Murder, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Alcoholism, Cursing, Violence, and Alcohol
laurarevelesg's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Why? I miss my dad too.
Yes, but there's just too many ways to miss your mother. There's like a hundred thousand ways"
Me tomó 4 meses leer esta novela porque cada cierto tiempo tenía que dejarla debido a la dureza de sus temas. Ahora que la terminé, solo puedo decir que tengo sentimientos encontrados.
La protagonista, Marina, sufre de todo tipo de violencia. Leer sobre esto, tragedia tras tragedia, fue exhaustivo. Sin embargo, esto no quiere decir que la historia de Marina, así como la de otras mujeres (ficticias y reales) no sea importante o no deba ser contada.
Las notas de autor finales dan nuevos ojos para apreciar la novela, por eso, a pesar de que el "trayecto" fue duro, y pocas veces disfrutable, regresar a la novela da una sensación agridulce, pues es tan cruel como bella.
Algo que no disfruté fue la intercalación entre los capítulos y la narración del aswang. Me ppareció que me distraía más de lo que verdaderamente guiaba la historia. Además, como había capítulos muy largos, al llegar a la parte del aswang ya no recordaba muy bien todo lo que había sucedido anteriormente.
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Car accident, Murder, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Classism
nini23's review against another edition
3.0
Accordingly, this novel has disturbing content which includes rape, sexual violence toward women and minors, drug use, separation of mothers from children by the state, sex trafficking, child neglect and abuse, racism, confinement, murder.
Onto this real life case, Melissa Chadburn has grafted a fictional backstory for Willie Pickton's forty-ninth victim - biracial American Marina Salles with a Filipino mother and Black absent father in the military. The text is liberally peppered with Tagalog. An omniscient narrator of Filipino folklore, a ferocious aswang, tells of how she has been in the maternal family for seven generations since the Spanish colonization of Phillipines. Young Marina grows up amid the teachings and admonishments of her lola (grandmother); how to behave as a female, how to get ahead in life.
I appreciate that the author is trying to highlight the socioeconomic disenfranchisement that led Marina to her ending. The issues confronting Vancouver Downtown Eastside then and now of prostitution, homelessness, poverty, trafficking, drugs, mental illness are complex. The women who went missing were met with official apathy and indifference, falling through society's cracks.
I do have a few concerns:
1) This is a real life case with family and friends of the missing and murdered still suffering the pain and trauma. Some of the proposed memorializations of the victims in different forms have been shelved on request by the victims' families or community groups https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/healing-garden-pickon-memorial-port-coquitlam-1.3580342 Note in particular that a painting exhibition and artist illustrations were both deemed distressing to the families. Did the families give permission for this literary rendering of their personal tragedy?
2) The main character Marina spends the majority of her teen years in Los Angeles, United States. She is in placement in her later teen years and after emancipation, lives on her own in LA before heading to Vancouver for a nebulous plot reason. A significant number of Pickton's victims were from First Nations communities
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2007/01/22/who-were-picktons-alleged-victims/ and small Canadian towns.
a) I noticed in the text that Canada was written as if it was an amorphous blob country eg 'Early the next morning, Sabine and Alex left the house and drove home to Canada. Their house sat high on a hill where trees whistle,...' and 'First she knew she needed money for rent, then money for a train ticket to Canada.' Where in Canada?! Ten provinces, three northern territories. Very different distances.
b) For MMIWG, the discussion would have to be about the Indian Act of 1876, broken land treaties, reserves, residential schools, sixties scoop, intergenerational trauma. Because of the Filipino American backstory that the main character is given, we get instead Spaniard colonialist history and the Rodney King LA riots.
c) If we're going to delve into socioeconomic inequalities that ultimately led to the tragedy, then it should be about these Vancouver Eastside dwellers. The vast difference in worlds between East Vancouver and West Vancouver. The harm reduction tactics in use there like safe injection sites. Availability of mental health and addiction recovery services. First Nations child welfare system. Housing unaffordability. The attitude and policing by the RCMP in the area, their ignoring of the initial reports of the crime because the witnesses were deemed 'unreliable.' Instead we get a detailed examination of the child welfare system in LA, child placements by the state and even exactly how much an emancipated teen gets for a stipend there. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/article-jury-says-bc-should-stop-use-of-group-homes-for-indigenous-foster/
There are significant differences in the Canadian social security system, Canadian health-care delivery, Canadian political systems, Canada's laws governing prostitution, Canada's labour standard regulations. Even if the author is more well-versed in American inequalities and the LA child welfare system, it is disingenuous to shoehorn and graft that onto a Canadian national tragedy.
3) A thirteen-year-old Marina
Thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing an eARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Mental illness, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, and Blood