Reviews tagging 'Miscarriage'

Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich

39 reviews

ellecama's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Forced institutionalization, and Pregnancy

rachaelwho's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective sad 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? No

4.75

Narration by the author is great.
I think the people who didn't like this book wanted it to be spookier and more sci-fi. This is a book about motherhood, womanhood, pregnancy, autonomy, family, ancestry, and what we owe each other. Authoritarianism and institutionalization, too. It is also about climate and catastrophe, near-future dystopia. The sci-fi conceit isn't superfluous, but this isn't quite "genre fiction" and if you wanted to get into that, I guess you probably wouldn't love this one. Reviews hung up on the "science" of the setting not making sense are... Really stunningly, jaw-droppingly missing the forest.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Medical content, Kidnapping, Pregnancy, and Deportation

delvesinshelves's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Violence, Murder, and Pregnancy

Minor: Torture

ekmoore11's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Forced institutionalization, Kidnapping, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Racism and Sexism

Minor: Abortion

drenvirobook's review against another edition

mysterious tense fast-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? It's complicated

5.0

This book offers an indigenous perspective on the feminist body-horror dystopian theocracy. An opaque plague besieges newborn babies, offering an opportunity for a conservative religious power grab.  Erdrich explores this novel through the lens of Cedar, an indigenous woman who is pregnant. The plague coincides with Cedar’s pregnancy and her push to connect to her birth family after being raised by white parents. The plot alone would be enough for me to have loved this, but it was enhanced by the complex characters and their relationships.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Miscarriage, and Pregnancy

kalayk's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Infidelity, Sexism, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Medical content, Trafficking, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Gore, Miscarriage, Excrement, Grief, Abortion, Alcohol, and Classism

willyzita's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Miscarriage

becksusername's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious 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

Wow this did not have a happy ending. At all. I really wanted it to. This book was so good and had such an original premise, I was definitely hooked immediately and tore through it.

Re-Read: Holy fucking shit I love this book. The ending fucked me up all over again, but in a different way because I knew what was coming.

the part at the end where she describes the end of winter in Minnesota had me on the brink of tears. We don't know it's heaven. Fuck. And of course the whole premise is so much creepier given the current state of women's bodily autonomy in the US. Fuuuuuck

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Pregnancy, and Outing

Moderate: Kidnapping and Murder

Minor: Drug use, Gun violence, Infertility, Infidelity, and Fire/Fire injury

alldebstinations's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Infertility, Miscarriage, Forced institutionalization, Kidnapping, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Death, Infertility, Miscarriage, Forced institutionalization, Kidnapping, Grief, and Gaslighting

Minor: Child death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Sexism, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, and Pregnancy

pastelwriter's review against another edition

challenging emotional slow-paced

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

3.0

From a more objective standpoint, this is a good book. It simply did not work for me. 

The main reason this book didn’t work for me was because I didn’t like Cedar. I’m unfortunately one of those readers that has to either bond with the protagonists or not be explicitly bothered by them. In this book, the protagonist just did not work for me. Between her religiousness and her hopeful outlook in absolute everything despite the world being absolute chaos, I just couldn’t deal with her.

In addition, the author is the audiobook narrator...and I did not like her as a narrator. I’m usually a fan of when authors narrate their books, but it did not work for me here. It just made Cedar feel even more annoying to me. 

Regardless, I was intrigued by the change the world was going through in this book. I appreciated the premise and was intrigued by it. I thought there was a realistic portrayal of what the world may come to if the events of this book were to occur in real life. The premise was what kept me reading because I did genuinely want to know what would happen next. 

At the end of the day, my thoughts aren’t worth much because it was for incredibly subjective reasons that this book didn’t work for me. I would still highly recommend it. Form your own opinion on it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage