Reviews with content warning for Suicide - The Country Will Bring Us No Peace

Before I start complaining, let me first state what I enjoyed about this book.

One of the things I really did like was the vibes of this book. It was lonely, melancholy, and haunting, and it gave the story a good edge where it needed it. It really echoed the meaning of the title. I also like that the characters have plenty (plenty) of flaws. I came into this book kind of expecting it to be a psychological horror-esque story where an innocent couple has bad shit happen to them in the country, or whatever, but no! Very much not that, and I'm glad my expectations were subverted. I also liked that a good amount of the characters and the characters' reactions/interactions were pretty unpredictable and kept me on my toes

Now, onto the stuff I wasn't a fan of.

First off all, this book was painfully hard to keep reading. Initially, it wasn't exactly boring. It was the strange issue of "I'm not bored when I'm reading it, but if I put it down I can't bring myself to pick it up again." Eventually, it did kind of get hard to push through it because the plot just dragged, but that was what I felt for a solid chunk of the book. This was a short story that could've taken me a couple days to finish if I was actually really interesting, but instead it took me an annoying ten days. The book was filled with nice prose, but when it felt like nothing was happening and we just kept getting weird scenes (I'll get there) and unexplained reactions from the main characters, I was just like can we hurry this up already? God.

I did talk about how I liked that the characters have flaws, but honestly, the main characters were so flawed that they just felt kind of insufferable. There were some sweet moments between them, but at times they felt so asshole-ish that I didn't really want to keep reading from their point of view. Honestly, they really only got interesting when it's revealed that

their kid died

. And even then, we just got continuous monologues about them mourning that – which is the point – but it also means nothing is happening. Just another thing that frustrated me while reading.

Regarding the "weird scenes" I mentioned... I'm wondering if it's just a different culture or something (I noticed this was translated from French) because... there's scenes where this guy,

Fisher, just... kisses the wife of the main couple in the story? On the LIPS? In a public bar?? And she does absolutely nothing, and so does her husband?? I was sitting there baffled while reading that – and the husband does punch Fisher later, but I was still sitting there like what?? And then Fisher kisses her (albeit on the forehead) AGAIN! And she barely does anything! Only once he sexually assaults/gropes her does she physically react. Genuinely baffling scenes and made me utterly confused about what was going on.

As for another scene... I usually don't read trigger warnings or anything of the sort, and to be honest, it isn't treated as something fine, but seeing an abrupt basically

rape scene because the wife forces her husband to have sex with her?? (It is, thankfully, quick.) What?? And it's not treated as a good thing but it feels like it's kind of there then gone, and I'm sitting there like what the actual hell?

I don't know, it's less of the lack of a trigger warning and moreso how jarring it is to have and then sort of brushed off... it was just really weird.

And then the ending itself (which was actually spoiled in the beginning, which I originally wasn't a huge fan of) feels like it comes out of nowhere.

Them wanting to join their kid or whatever, yeah, but... there's almost nothing in the book that's supernatural? Are they hallucinating?? I honestly expected them to fight, or something, because that'd feel more natural than what this ended with.

Truthfully, I think it narratively works, but it honestly feels out of the blue.

There also this random thing about an antenna being a huge deal in the town, but I never really understood it. I've talked a lot, so I won't really get into it, but it was honestly kind of confusing that it was so important in the story. Maybe just a me thing – I'm not from the country.

Overall, interesting vibes and characters, bogged down mostly by an incredibly slow plot. With extra tidbits such as insufferable characters, weird scenes, and baffling story decisions, I'm giving this 2.25 stars. The vibes were decent, and I liked the

dead kid thing

and how doomed the couple was, but man. This book was hard to keep reading.

Content Warnings

oversherin's review

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

3.5

This book was intriguing and moody. I really enjoyed the first half and was really spooked by the eerie town. Simard does a good job portraying the couple’s complex love. Overall, it didn’t blow me away but it was a great fast read with an intriguing progression.

Content Warnings

toppoptart's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad slow-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

3.0

Sad, poignant, but

relies on loose magic/psychosis to tie the ending into a lackluster finish.

I'm a stickler for meaning, and as tragic and serious the topic of the book is, it fell short in any change towards growth or change be that in the positive OR negative for the characters. Even a negative change would be worthwhile, but characters stayed in the same overall realm from start to finish. Perhaps the aimless recklessness of it all was meant to be gripping, but it puttered glumly on in no particular way IMO. I learned nothing new that I felt was wprthwhile than what was written in the first two chapters. Still worth stars for subject matter and the creativity of that and the characters, but nothing was fully developed in a way that was tangible, and what was done to make a point just contradicticed itself in no clear way enough for connection.

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