Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

Everything Sad Is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri

4 reviews

sarah984's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful 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? It's complicated

4.0

It took me a while at the beginning to figure out how to read this book, but once I got into it, I couldn't stop reading. At first it feels like a lot of vignettes only connected in that they're about the same person, but gradually it all comes together. The author's "kid" voice is really well-done.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Religious bigotry, Blood, and Grief

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Xenophobia, Domestic abuse, Excrement, Racism, and Bullying

Minor: Torture, Confinement, Body shaming, Death, Kidnapping, Medical content, Pedophilia, War, and Drug use

erinwolf1997's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Religious bigotry, War, and Bullying

Moderate: Animal death, Classism, Excrement, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Violence, Grief, Islamophobia, and Racism

Minor: Vomit

betweentheshelves's review against another edition

emotional reflective 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

I can definitely see why this is a Printz winner, as Nayeri's story is layered and powerful. There are some absolutely gorgeous lines throughout this book. I do wonder what the intended audience is for this book, though, because even though the main character is 12, for me it reads a little older.

Without chapter breaks, the book very much reads like a stream of consciousness, with Nayeri moving between fiction and reality. It mimics 1,000 Arabian Nights and works well in showing the Persian culture. Overall, this is a powerful, emotional memoir. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Medical content and Xenophobia

inkdrunkmoth's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.5

 

I was lucky to get both an eARC but also an ALC copy of this book. I ended up listening to the audiobook for this. I really did love this book. I have a soft spot for most middle grade books anyways, but I remembered seeing this one and it sticking out to me for some reason, maybe it was the beautiful cover, so when I saw it on Libro.fm I snatched up the arc of it and started listening to it right away. I’m not always a fan of authors reading their own books simply because they aren’t trained in it. Sometimes they struggle to get across emotions and will just give a flat performance. But that wasn’t the case for this book. If anything, Daniel brought with it his own memories of being this age, how he’d tell these stories and what level of excitement and sadness to bring to this. It was heart shattering and funny all at once. I can’t say enough good about this audiobook. This is all true, though names are different and some minor characters might have been combined. Which means Daniel really lived through all these things, the abuses of his stepfather, of being a religious refugee, of losing his father to distance. I loved the setup of this story. Daniel is telling us his story through a school report. Either its one report or multiple ones like a journal I’m not overly sure. He combines his current memories of living in Oklahoma and those of his early years in Iran. He explains how they end up as Christian refugees in Italy and Saudi Arabia before finally landing in the US. He explains his family stories and how that ties back to him and the importance of him remembering them now when he’s so far away from home. In this time more than ever we need the stories of immigrants and refugees and the treatment they receive. Daniel is bullied horribly by his classmates and even by adults. His mother keeps returning to her abusive ex because she feels she had no choice because she has no money to support her kids despite having been a doctor back in Iran. This story tells the hard truths that need to be known more now than ever and I think the author did it perfectly  by keeping the reader humored with jokes about poop and other things that pop up throughout the story and the hard truths of it all. I highly recommend this book to probably older middle grade students and older simply because it is a hard story due to the abuse and suffering. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Blood, Bullying, Violence, and Racial slurs

Moderate: Drug abuse and Medical content