Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

True Biz by Sara Nović

69 reviews

marioosa517's review

challenging emotional hopeful informative sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Religious bigotry, Drug use, Alcohol, Medical content, Medical trauma, Ableism, Cursing, Dementia, Child abuse, Death of parent, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Death, Child death, and Racism

Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Pregnancy, Police brutality, and Vomit

ashton_n's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

I was hooked from the first chapter. I loved the chapters with information on Deaf Culture, the history of Anarchism, and of course our favorite girl, Charlie. 

Favorite Quote: “This is not your fault; this is the way it always has been; there is nothing any of us can do; I love you so much for trying”

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, and Child abuse

Minor: Addiction, Death, Death of parent, Abandonment, Body horror, Alcohol, Dementia, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, and Grief

shirarweiss's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia, Death, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Medical content, Car accident, Medical trauma, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Ableism, Death of parent, Dementia, Drug use, Gaslighting, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Emotional abuse, and Religious bigotry

sorenzs's review

emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I haven’t gotten so wonderfully immersed into the world of a book for a while until reading this. At its core, True Biz is about being human. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Car accident, Ableism, Alcohol, Medical content, Child abuse, Medical trauma, Religious bigotry, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, and Sexual content

Moderate: Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Bullying, Suicidal thoughts, and Racism

Minor: Vomit

signeskov's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative inspiring medium-paced

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

4.25

A super insightful and important coming-of-age novel that presents an intimate and diverse experience(s) of deafness within the walls of an imaginary school for the deaf in southern Ohio. For those of us who have only ever been part of the hearing world, the novel provides a multitude of nuances of what being deaf has meant in North America then, now - and how the community risks further erosion in the future due to new technologies and unequal power relations between the hearing and deaf worlds. A nice read for anyone craving a coming-of-age teenage story with a twist of anarchy and who wants to learn something new.

Also: make sure to read this in a print format! The book includes many wonderful illustrations of ASL that you can practice and learn from as you read. I imagine this works for a much better reading experience in a print than audio book format.

(NB: I chose this book originally as part of the 2023 StoryGraph genre challenge to read a novel with disability rep - though, as it is also apparent from the book, deafness may or may not be a disability depending on the deaf individual you ask and their own lived experience. For now, though, given the thorough injustices experienced by deaf children and adults alike in societies still structured around the presumption of hearing, I believe this novel still qualifies as a relevant selection for the challenge)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Car accident, Terminal illness, Death of parent, Dementia, Hate crime, Medical trauma, and Racism

Moderate: Grief, Alcohol, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, and Religious bigotry

jialianyang's review

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

Loved this book. A perfect mix of plot, character development and education. I loved the perspective switching, the incorporation of ASL and Deaf culture and Deaf slang. It was a perfect supplemental book to my ASL class, but it would be great standalone read as well because it is so compelling. Definitely more of a young adult book, but in a good way.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Addiction, Alcohol, Violence, Ableism, Cursing, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Gaslighting, Hate crime, Adult/minor relationship, and Misogyny

analenegrace's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional medium-paced

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

4.25

As a disabled person, one of my big endeavors for 2023 is to read more disability-centered books and True Biz came highly recommended. The first few chapters were hard to get into, but once I got sucked into the story, it felt impossible to put down. 

Charlie as a character was very interesting and her family life tells an important story of Deaf experiences in the United States today. Juxtaposing her with Austin allowed me, as the reader, to see the two sides to Deaf life and the challenges of each. 

I'm not sure where I thought the book would end, but it wasn't that in a very good way. The story ramped up in a believable way, making it a very good read. 

My first criticism lies in the way Austin's ex is written; she's such a flat character, seemingly only there to make Charlie seem cooler and better. My other criticism of this is its advertisement as LGBTQIA+; while the headmistress is a lesbian, the story is only about her a little bit, and the overarching story is about Charlie and Austin, a straight couple. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Adult/minor relationship, Car accident, Death of parent, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Alcohol, Child abuse, Forced institutionalization, and Gaslighting

lovealwaysadi's review against another edition

emotional informative inspiring 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? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Dementia, Ableism, Alcohol, Car accident, Chronic illness, Classism, Death of parent, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Blood, Cursing, Grief, and Racism

Minor: Infidelity and Sexual content

madelinedalton's review

challenging emotional informative reflective medium-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? It's complicated

3.5

I loved how this novel explored the characters of Charlie and Austin, and their relationship with one another. The thing that will stick with me most is Charlie's journey from being forced to assimilate into hearing culture to gaining language at RVSD and embracing her deafness.

Some criticisms:

Spoiler

February and Mel. I don't feel like either of them developed as characters at all. They were so bad at communicating, and the ending was so rushed that we never got to see them make up or grow from their conflict.

Speaking of the ending, it was SO rushed. We needed at least 20 more pages to wrap all that up. The novel opens with Charlie, Elliot, and Austin disappearing, so I was expecting a major pay-off by the time we circled back to that action. Instead, it felt rushed and un-earned.

Charlie's involvement with the anarchists, and the anarchy plot line in general, didn't jive with me. It felt like Charlie was living two separate lives--normal kid with a lot of issues who is trying to find her way in the world vs. rebel child. Austin's willingness to go along with all of it also felt very uncharacteristic. I understand that Charlie needed some sort of outlet for rebellion, but based on how her character was portrayed, I'd expect it to be more tame than cooking literal bombs and planning to blow up Edge Bionics. That just seems too far for both her and Austin.

Finally, I didn't love the chapters that came from the perspectives of peripheral characters (Kayla, Wanda, Charlie's mom, Elliot, etc). It took me out of the story. I would have preferred that the narration stayed with our three main perspectives and that we were given more of the peripheral characters' perspectives via those chapters. Another cool option would have been to give those characters stronger narrative roles and more chapters, creating a true ensemble cast. For example, Kayla's chapter about racism and BASL was fascinating and educational, but we never circled back to it, and I was really disappointed. I would have loved a subplot about racism that ran through the novel as a whole rather than a couple random chapters. Wanda's chapter felt un-earned because the February/Mel conflict was never resolved.

 

Overall, I think all hearing people should read this to learn more about Deaf culture and support Deaf authors. The book is not without its writing flaws, though. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Religious bigotry, and Medical content

Moderate: Death, Drug use, and Alcohol

Minor: Sexual content

mjwhitlock18's review

4.0

An incredibly important story, with nuanced, imperfect, but well rounded characters. Written from the point of view of two students at a residential school for the Deaf as well as its CODA headmistress, and is about what happens when Deaf pride meets ableism and teenage angst. I love the representation of the diversity of the community. The ending felt a bit rushed, the plot and characterization is melodramatic at times, and I always hate a subplot based entirely around poor communication. I do appreciate how the storylines for all the characters are woven together to illustrate the central theme of language as more than just communication, but as a tool to include, exclude, or forge identity. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Death of parent, and Ableism

Moderate: Drug use, Alcohol, Racism, and Car accident