Reviews tagging 'Panic attacks/disorders'

The Round House by Louise Erdrich

3 reviews

yourbookishbff's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• 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

5.0

This is my first by Louise Erdrich, and I know I'll read more. As beautifully written as it is devastating, this premise is dark - a mother is brutally raped and nearly murdered, escaping - just barely - with her life at the very start of our story. With the discovery of the crime, the lives of every person in her orbit shift radically. This is written in first-person through the perspective of her thirteen-year-old son, Joe, and you can feel in every scene how he teeters between childhood and adulthood, at times falling into silly Star Trek games and juvenile inside jokes with his best friends, and at others, resenting his parents for the fall-out from the crime as he tries to unravel the mystery himself. Joe's fears, anxieties, resentment, curiosity, and growing self-awareness are deeply painful to read as an adult, as we see the aging effect of childhood trauma and the ripples of the crime in every part of his life. 

Joe's personal liminality is reflected in Erdrich's depiction of life on the reservation. We take long detours through Catholicism and the local church and see the ways in which colonizing religions have influenced various people and families in their tribe, and we sense the disharmony of these traditions and their own. In the end, as Joe journeys toward revenge, he finds himself seeking reassurance and validation in both Catholic and Ojibwe tradition, alternately leaning on stories of Sins Crying out for Vengeance and the wiindigoo. Erdrich sets the crime itself in just such a liminal space - occurring, in part, within the Round House, a sacred space for the Ojibwe, but occurring in part at an intersection of tribal and "fee" lands. This liminality becomes the crux of the injustice in our story, and Erdrich shows us how the very real lack of sovereignty for Indigenous communities undermines their ability to protect themselves and their lands, and how it has specifically betrayed Indigenous victims of sexual violence.

There is so much that can be said about how Erdrich builds the narrative - the lack of quotation marks that give it a stream of consciousness feel at times, the storytelling woven throughout, the anecdotal detours, the wide cast of characters and the decision to confine the story to Joe's point of view. Altogether, these decisions create a world haunted by many ghosts, one in which we can see the ripples of action and inaction across people and generations, and one in which justice feels illusory. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Cursing, Death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Rape, Sexual violence, Torture, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Murder, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship and Car accident

lorenag5's review against another edition

challenging emotional mysterious reflective sad tense 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? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Gun violence, Hate crime, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Dementia, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Car accident, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail

battybookworm's review

challenging dark emotional funny 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

This was a book assigned for my American Lit class. It is probably my second favorite that we read this term. The first half is hard to read, it opens with an assault, so if that's triggering for you this is probably not a great book to read. Following Joe, the son of the woman assaulted, through these life events is something really powerful and there's so much to this book that I could never properly summarize. It has reinvigorated my wish to read everything of Erdrich's cause I get to the end of her novels and am instantly wondering why there aren't a hundred more pages to get through: I just can't get enough of her words and her characters! There's so much to feel and so many people to love in this novel!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Hate crime, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Violence

Moderate: Alcoholism, Cursing, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, and Car accident

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, and Vomit