Reviews with content warning for Incest - Perish

“Perish” by Latoya Watkins

Content Warning: Sexual Assault, Incest, Racism, Gun Violence, Allusions to Drug Use
The family matriarch of a Black Texan family is dying. Her descendents gather at her bedside, each coming for the purpose of undoing a particular knot in the family tree, untying the intergenerational trauma that goes back to the matriarchal root.

I cannot say that this novel was for me. This is a tale of intergenerational trauma, and it does reflect the compound nature of traumatic family histories. However, the novel spun from tragedy to tragedy, and the writing about the trauma was not interesting or presented in nuanced ways. Watkins elected for a direct, blunt description of the traumatic events throughout the novel, which made it hard to keep listening. Without some kind of mediating writing choice in a novel of this nature, I think it’s very easy for audiences to shut it out and not hear the important, challenging compound issues that many families, especially Black families, face.

There is an audience for this book. And these are stories that are worth being told, worth being heard. However, I think how we tell them is important and for me, “Perish” did not succeed in striking a balance between presenting trauma and triggering readers who may share these experiences.

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nicoleisalwaysreading's review

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challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-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? Yes

2.5

a haunting, horrific story of abuse and the way it repeats itself and echoes through a family. It’s well-written with complex characters, but the content was very hard to stomach, especially towards the end (as in, I literally felt sick the last 50 pages or so) another note is that it became very confusing to keep track of the family members because their voices were not very distinct

I didn’t feel that it resolved itself narratively and the shock ending felt ridiculous. It’s just hard because the story of trauma and potential healing/breaking free of generational patterns is important, but this story left me feeling hopeless

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