Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

Memorial by Bryan Washington

6 reviews

kappafrog's review against another edition

dark emotional funny reflective 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? Yes

2.5

This book just didn't do it for me. Even though the book is written in first person, something about its style made me feel disconnected from the characters, especially Benson and Mitsuko. I almost gave up in Benson's portion because I found Benson such a blah character and the relationship that drove the novel seemed to have nothing going for it. Once we switched to Mike's perspective though, things picked up. I was surprised to find Mike such a sympathetic character after my apathy towards both him and Benson in the first section. Even Benson became more likeable from Mike's perspective some of the time (though at other times he was really awful).

Unusually for a book, the final section was definitely the best. So often authors lose steam at that point, but here I thought that Washington got me to care way more than I had about Benson and his father, while still keeping up the emotional momentum on Mike. Before the final section, I had spent most of my time reading resigned to finishing but with no enthusiasm for the book or its characters. The end brought together a lot of the threads of the book. Even though the ending is

open-ended, I still felt satisfied with it.

I have some other issues with the book though. A lot of the characters don't feel like real people in the way they talked - particularly the women, Ximena, Lydia and Mitsuko. They dispensed cryptic wisdom or made pithy remarks but never felt like real people. What I've seen described as the book's "staccato" pace meant that there were way too many emotional punchlines. So many passages tried to be profound in an understated way that I just got bored.

And finally, I don't think that Eiju's domestic abuse of Mitsuko was reckoned with enough (or for that matter, Mike and Benson's domestic abuse of each other). But it felt especially annoying in such a male-focused book that so much of the book's emotional core is about a reconciliation between a boy and the father who beat his mother, in which said father never once apologizes for that abuse, and a twist is made to make us think for a second that Mitsuko was the bad guy all along. The book's best emotional bits were about Eiju and Mike, but I never felt like Mitsuko got her emotional due even though the book ended with a focus on her.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Cancer, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Infidelity, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Classism

Moderate: Ableism, Body shaming, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Physical abuse, Racism, Vomit, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Drug use, Blood, and Fire/Fire injury

seventhswan's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.5

I can't believe this book is blurbed as funny and sexy. It is profoundly sad, not in a tragic, melodramatic way, but in the quiet, bleak sense that nothing is quite right in any of the characters' lives and nobody cares enough to try and make things better. Everyone in this book needs to attend therapy yesterday, and try sleeping with someone who truly loves them.

I liked the characters of Benson and Mike separately - I probably enjoyed reading Mike's POV slightly more than Benson's, he had a little more about him - but I was not rooting for their relationship at all. Somewhere towards the end of the book, I remembered that they'd been together five years, not five months, and was ready to scream. However, I thought they were both interesting, well-written characters, and I cared about what happened to them (certainly more than anyone in the story seemed to). 

The writing was often really beautiful and thought-provoking, and I didn't mind the lack of quotation marks, but I really struggled with 'new speaker, new line' not being followed. I had to reread several paragraphs because I'd misunderstood who was speaking, which was frustrating. 

I would say that this book was good, not that I enjoyed it. It was not a cheerful or uplifting read, despite the characters insisting they felt hopeful at the end. Other than the speech, it was well-executed, and I'd read more by Washington in the future.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Toxic relationship, and Death of parent

Moderate: Alcoholism, Homophobia, Racism, and Sexual content

sadhbhprice's review against another edition

emotional funny reflective 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Homophobia, Infidelity, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Racism, and Abandonment

Minor: Body shaming, Child abuse, Drug use, Fatphobia, Physical abuse, and Alcohol

maybeimali's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective 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

3.5

Benson saved it. Mike ruined it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Homophobia, Infidelity, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Grief, Death of parent, and Abandonment

Moderate: Addiction, Body shaming, Child abuse, Fatphobia, and Homophobia

20sidedbi's review against another edition

challenging emotional mysterious reflective 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Child abuse, Homophobia, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Abandonment, and Classism

gracew's review against another edition

emotional slow-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

It's hard for me to really rate this book because while I didn't hate it, I didn't like it. I don't know if it is that I don't necessarily understand or enjoy stories about forgiving shitty family members or if it is because I don't understand what I'm supposed to get out of this, but it just didn't work for me. Well, this is not entirely true, the 1/3 of the book worked for me and after that I just didn't. I liked the writing style and I liked most of the plot it is just that overall the story doesn't hit for me. I feels like the author had two semi related stories and some extra bits and snitched them all together with various levels of success.  Not a winner from my POV.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Child abuse, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, and Racism