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knkoch's review against another edition
- 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? Yes
4.5
The characters are deeply empathetic and benefit from the time Ganeshananthan takes to sketch out their prewar lives. Such a large family can be difficult to differentiate, but she does it superbly. I was struck by the way war anywhere destroys all the normal hopes and expectations people build for their lives. All the students who spent hours studying for medical or engineering exams they never got the chance to sit for, or marriages and families that never got the space to begin. In places plagued by ongoing violence it can be easy to forget how many scores of people demonstrate for the chance to live the peaceful, normal lives that were interrupted, even demonstrating against the rebel forces purporting to fight for them. And yet oppressive, discriminatory, prejudiced governments, like the Sinhalese-led government of 1980s Sri Lanka, foment inevitable rebellion through their restrictions and abuses of power.
This is a very accessible introduction to the Sri Lankan civil war to anyone less familiar with its dynamics. I got a bit lost last year reading The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, grounded in the same time and conflict, but now I feel a bit more capable of picking that one up again. Brotherless Night is more directly about the larger conflict and communities involved, and while painful to read, quite brilliant. I'm looking forward to attending an author event next month for this book and learning more.
Graphic: Death, Suicide, Violence, Medical content, Religious bigotry, War, and Injury/Injury detail
oenophile_bibliophile's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Moderate: Death, Rape, Suicide, and War
qqjj's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Death, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Police brutality, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail
nov_ella's review against another edition
- 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? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Death, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Violence, Grief, Murder, and War
jouljet's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Genocide, Racism, Rape, Suicide, Violence, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail
kirstym25's review against another edition
- 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
4.5
Graphic: Death, Violence, and War
Moderate: Rape, Sexual violence, and Suicide
serendipitysbooks's review against another edition
- 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? It's complicated
4.75
Graphic: Death, Violence, and War
Moderate: Rape and Suicide
directorpurry's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Sexual violence, Suicide, Medical content, Kidnapping, and War
Moderate: Rape and Pregnancy
hannahbailey's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
The narrative takes a journalistic approach to storytelling, to the point that I felt I was reading a factual eye-witness account of the horrors of the past. Despite the first-person POV, the narrative is pointedly lacking in human emotion and reaction. The recounting of events is direct, so no facts or details are hidden or sugarcoated to protect the reader. This makes for a heavy read as things go from bad to worse, with little reprieve. These aren’t criticisms — in fact, I felt it was a deliberate and powerful choice to convey the story in this way. The narrator experiences unspeakable losses within her own family and witnesses many more atrocities of war. The only way she can tell the truth — which is her aim from the beginning — is to remove much of the heightened emotion she must be feeling.
There is less dialogue than I would expect to find in a novel, but the nature of the plot allows for it. I’m not sure this narrative style is necessarily for me, but it’s refreshing to read something different. I learned a lot about Sri Lanka’s recent history and politics which I found really interesting. The novel spans about 30 years, but follows the narrator and the decisions made by those around her, rather than taking a wider lens to the world at the time. It was particularly poignant then when the author brings in the United Nations towards the end of the novel — after so much ‘avoidable’ conflict and death, the UN’s ambivalence towards civilians’ lives was the final nail in the coffin of what was a horrific and drawn-out war. I was shocked to discover the conflict was still going on in 2009. An informative read if your history education was as white-washed and colonised as mine.
If you enjoyed this, you may enjoy Moth by Melody Razak for similar tone of voice and the depiction of war through one family's experience.
Thank you to NetGalley for the free e-arc in exchange for an honest review
TW: war, death, murder, child death, rape, violence, sexual violence, fire, blood/gore, injury detail, kidnapping, torture, genocide, grief, suicide, animal
Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gore, Rape, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
hilaryreadsbooks's review against another edition
5.0
BROTHERLESS NIGHT is an invitation to question the narratives we are told, to restructure the course of history we have mapped out in our minds. It is a powerful tribute to the resistance and bravery of women. Most of all, it is an account of terrible things that happened to many people. As Sashi grieves, she says: “I wanted the four clean walls of my Jaffna childhood, the courtyard with its cup of sunlight, the small and dear lane where I had grown up. Give me a house that hasn’t burned, I thought: an upright home full of people who consider me precious.” I ached for her throughout this book, for the lost lives and futures and would-have-beens, for the ways that hate can make others forget that life should be treated as precious.
Sashi’s resilence and courage are miraculous; and yet I wished for another impossible miracle: to rewind the course of history, to un-burn libraries and markets and homes, to un-do death and starvation, to put the light back in young eyes, to erase blood from hands that were never meant to kill. Listening is a powerful thing, in that it is also a reminder that we cannot change the past, but amplify its stories and work to a changed future.
[Thanks to the publisher for a review copy. This is out now]
Graphic: Death, Hate crime, Rape, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Murder, and War