Reviews with content warning for Hate crime - Pew

Is there an actual human sacrifice? What happens to the kids? Are they reading names of kids that were sacrificed? Does Pew sacrifice themselves or do they run away? etc...

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mmefish's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective slow-paced

5.0

Did everyone feel this vacillating, animal loneliness after removing clothes? How could I still be in this thing, answering to its endless needs and betrayals? The room was all white and gray and the air was warm and the air hung on me and I hung in this flesh that all those unknown centuries of blood that had brought into being. I had to tend to this flesh as if it were an honest gift, as if it had all been worth it. Why did living feel so invisibly brief and unbearably long at once?

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savvylit's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective fast-paced

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

5.0

Pew is, at it's core, a fable that questions morality and identity while simultaneously exposing the harmful nature of projection. In just over 200 pages, Catherine Lacey has managed to reveal all of the particular menaces of an isolated community.

The congregants at the center of this novel are righteous and certain of their own goodness. Throughout Pew, their one-sided conversations with the stranger uncover the truth; that good intentions do not beget good actions. In a slow and foreboding fashion reminiscent of the horror genre, Lacey portrays the manipulative side of charity. When generosity was never asked for, who does it really serve and who does it harm?

Furthermore, Catherine Lacey has created a narrator who is unknown and ambiguous to both the book's characters and to readers. In doing so, Lacey has deftly revealed modern society's reliance on forcing individuals to conform to specific ways of being. Readers discover that this form of projection and pressure only creates opportunity for harm and animosity.

Pew is truly a masterwork of a novel that I will never forget. This particular copy was a library loan but I look forward to owning my very own copy. I think Pew would fit perfectly and seamlessly alongside books by Carson McCullers, Flannery O'Connor, and Shirley Jackson on my bookshelf.

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swaggynikki's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

I want to read this book again, some time in the future when I'm smarter or have more time. It was exactly the type of weird, reflective, kinda-religious thing I really like but I definitely don't think I picked up what the author was putting down. The concept was fascinating, I really liked the voice/style, but I think I'll understand it more on a re-read or if I stop and consider it more, or even if I discuss it with someone else. Overall cool book though.

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astridrv's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective sad

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

A mysterious tale which raises more questions than it provides answers. The voice of a child that acutely observes the world; they see adults up close, far closer and truer than this gallery of characters would like, and they see themselves from afar, at a distance from the body that happens to carry their thoughts and hinder their expression. I am left haunted and provoked, thinking about identity and memory (What indeed is left if we admitted we shouldn't even have a name?) but also community and society (How to connect this book with Le Guin's Omelas, cited as epitaph?). I had expected a different ending but this short book might stay with me for a while. Oh, and it is incredibly well written, precise, chiseled, elegant and fresh.

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soapyporridge's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective tense 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

5.0

Forgiveness is sometimes just a costume for forgetting. I don't want it to be so--but every year, just before it begins, I start to feel this way. And then what? I forget about it.

I have so many thoughts about this book but they will not sit still. It has themes of identity, religion and race. Our main character is so silent at times and I think that this provoked a similar behaviour in me. I would finish a section and have to sit and think, I simply couldn't just carry on, it made me slow down. I will need to reread.

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