Reviews tagging 'Police brutality'

Caul Baby by Morgan Jerkins

11 reviews

caseythereader's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Blood, Child abuse, Infertility, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Police brutality, Death of parent, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Drug use, Child death, Cursing, Death, Pregnancy, and Suicide

asiamh's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Racism, Grief, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Death, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, and Infidelity

Moderate: Body horror, Police brutality, Torture, Death of parent, and Child death

Minor: Suicidal thoughts

musicalpopcorn's review against another edition

dark tense medium-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? Yes

3.75

A book about a family with a special gift and how they choose to use it, Caul Baby is dripping in symbolism and social commentary. 

This book was well-written and interesting. I don’t know if the metaphors were heavy handed or they just really spoke to me, but either way I was ok with it. I love some magical realism, and this book did it quite well. I appreciated the way that the author managed to convey the abuse and almost Stockholm syndrome way the women in the Melancon family made decisions. I was drawn in by the characters and quite enjoyed the story overall.

The one thing I will say is that I understand that Harlem is a character in the story, but I found it a little much to always be given exact street locations of places. For people in Harlem, that’s probably cool, but for me, it just felt tiring to constantly be given exact streets.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality and Miscarriage

Moderate: Child abuse

sammish's review against another edition

dark emotional slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Infertility, and Miscarriage

Moderate: Police brutality, Pregnancy, and Child abuse

sierranichole's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective 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

4.5

     I think it could have been written a bit better. Most of the characters could have been developed better, and the novel is too slow paced for me. Amara was written so excellent.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Medical content, Abandonment, Infertility, Medical trauma, and Mental illness

Moderate: Physical abuse, Racism, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, and Infidelity

Minor: Violence, Police brutality, and Racial slurs

peachani's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Body horror, Bullying, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Grief, Blood, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Toxic relationship, Injury/Injury detail, and Police brutality

Moderate: Abandonment, Child abuse, Infidelity, Fire/Fire injury, and Racism

Minor: Child death, Terminal illness, Vomit, Ableism, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Gaslighting, and Genocide

rebeccameyrink's review against another edition

challenging dark 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? Yes

4.0

This was such an interesting and layered novel. The story itself if very intriguing but the themes the book touches on and integrate into the story add so much depth and interest. Really amazing debut fiction novel and I can’t wait to see what Morgan Jerkins does next!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage and Child abuse

Minor: Police brutality

leah_alexandra's review against another edition

mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I'm so conflicted here because I really really wanted to love this book. The premise sets this up to be a totally fascinating read, but the writing and overall execution just falls flat. The dialogue is trite, and there is very little character development because of how quickly the book moves forward in time, skipping chunks of years in the process. Many of the minor characters and plot points feel like caricatures meant to make quite heavy-handed points about Black motherhood, which is a tremendously important conversation to have, but does it have to be so intro-level? I kind of wish the story had either leaned in harder to the magical realism aspects or taken a harder turn towards realism with a more in-depth exploration of Amara's work in the DA's office to put together a case against the Melancons. It wasn't a bad book, just not as good as I was expecting. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Blood, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Infertility, Infidelity, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Pregnancy, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Police brutality

bookmarkie's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infertility and Miscarriage

Moderate: Police brutality, Grief, Toxic relationship, and Racism

thebakerbookworm's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This book was a unique and ambitious story, a bit of magical realism mixed with literary fiction that covers a wide range of themes, from racism to motherhood to gentrification.

I listened to the audiobook and read along with the ebook for parts of it, which I don’t do very often (I rarely have two versions of a book haha), but I did enjoy that experience! The audio is well narrated and the book well written. The story does jump around a lot (sometimes several years between scenes) but there’s nice consistency with most of the characters. I was invested in the plot the whole time too.

The story is told in third person omniscient, which is my least favorite point-of-view style. But there is some nice character development, especially with Amara and Hallow, and I enjoyed both of their journeys.

Thank you to Libro.fm, Harper Audio, and the author for my ALC!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Grief, Infidelity, Medical content, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Police brutality, Pregnancy, and Racism