Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

Subdivision by J. Robert Lennon

2 reviews

sunn_bleach's review

challenging dark mysterious sad slow-paced

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

3.25

"Subdivision" would have struck me harder if I hadn't seen this trick pulled in lots of other media. I got that this was a

dying dream

before the halfway point; not a flex on my behalf, simply that the puzzle pieces (hehehe) were all there early on. It's one of those books that simultaneously is a little obvious and a little cryptic, and the cryptic parts (such as the birthday party and the tennis ball) become more annoying than poignant as they seem to be there to confuse our narrator and just be weird. I love surreality, but if you go to great strides to make things have a symbol, they could be more symbolic, especially with how obvious things like the puzzle piece are. It felt disjointed in how "challenging" it wanted to be - and overly precious when it tried to be heartfelt.

Yet I wanted to keep reading because I wanted to see if Lennon stuck the landing - and he did. Parts like

the unnamed narrator being pregnant, the probability well at the house being what the family *could* have had in a happier life, her forgetting her own name due to the head trauma of the accident, and Cylvia being her unborn child who *does* survive the accident

were nice little "aha!" moments toward the end, as well as figuring out who the unnamed boy was supposed to be. The final section is unsubtle, but it works as the narrator comes closer and closer to the City.

The stilted prose was a little frustrating at the start - but I think that's best seen as yet another manifestation of our narrator's peculiar problem. And it makes her interactions with the bakemono all the better.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Car accident, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Death, Emotional abuse, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Medical trauma

katievh's review

adventurous challenging dark funny hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Gaslighting

Minor: Medical trauma, Car accident, Pregnancy, Abandonment, and Sexual harassment