cheye13's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This was a wonderful, understated story about making a family and a life with intention. There's nothing exceptional or remarkable about this story, but it's emotional in its simplicity. I enjoyed the writing style and appreciated the depiction of an unconventional family.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Classism, and Kidnapping
Moderate: Misogyny, Pregnancy, Grief, Suicide, Bullying, Lesbophobia, and Racism
Minor: Drug abuse, Gun violence, Excrement, Gaslighting, and Sexual content
also note: eco-terrorism, snakes; a large part of the plot involves a child [subjectively] wrongly taken into foster care; a number of tense/dangerous and near-death logging scenes; jail time for trespassing; discovering a suicide; most prejudice warnings are for flippant dialogue, except for a brief scene involving an overtly racist and misogynistic man, dealt with accordinglyobviousthings's review
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Medical content, Pregnancy, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, and Animal death
Moderate: Transphobia, Gun violence, Ableism, Alcohol, and Mental illness
savvylit's review
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
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
At the heart of Stay and Fight is the perfectly imperfect chosen family of Helen, Karen, Lily, and Perley. Immersing readers in multiple points of view, Ffitch brings each character to vivid life. Stay and Fight is a story about resiliency in the face of obstacles that would break most people. It's about forging one's own path in a community where that sort of thing is uncommon. And it's also about fierce, blazing love. Love for each other, love for the land, love for the possibilities that hard work can bring.
Reading this book, it's obvious that Ffitch drew from her own experience as a homesteader while writing Stay and Fight. She portrays homesteading in an honest way: simultaneously incredibly difficult and deeply fulfilling. I truly appreciate Ffitch's insight and her ability to poke fun at some of the impulses that lead folks like Helen and myself to think that we want to build a homestead from scratch. It won't be easy at all -- but that's part of the appeal.
Reading this book, it's obvious that Ffitch drew from her own experience as a homesteader while writing Stay and Fight. She portrays homesteading in an honest way: simultaneously incredibly difficult and deeply fulfilling. I truly appreciate Ffitch's insight and her ability to poke fun at some of the impulses that lead folks like Helen and myself to think that we want to build a homestead from scratch. It won't be easy at all -- but that's part of the appeal.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, Lesbophobia, Animal death, Bullying, and Pregnancy
melaniekarin's review
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
beautiful story about an unconventional family living on a pipeline
Content Warnings
Graphic: Classism, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Lesbophobia, Suicide, and Bullying
heynonnynonnie's review
challenging
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
Had to sit on this for a while after finishing. Initially, I couldn't figure out where the story was going, and I toyed with the idea of DNF-ing, but I pushed on and ended up engrossed. I didn't particularly care for the ending, but also am not sure how else it could have ended or what I would have changed. I think I mostly felt that the ending was a little abrupt and that I would have liked to have stayed with the characters for a little while longer.
I struggled with figuring out how to review this book. I ended up listening to some interviews that Madeline Ffitch did and reading through other reviews on Goodreads and in opinion pieces. I didn't feel like the book was hilarious or even the "delightfully raucous" that I've seen tossed around in some reviews. If this book were a person, I'd call it a "son of a gun" and "old bastard" before buying it a round at the bar. It's gritty, cynical, real, but also filled with a bit of wonder that gleams through the cracks if you manage to catch it just right. Filled and built on the brave imperfections that are associated with the found family trope dialed to the max between three women who learn who they are, how to stand up for that, and eventually, for each other.
I felt that the novel was a decent exploration on the intersectionality of gender, sexual identity, racism, classism, and environmentalism because it forces the reader to pause their initial judgments of the unconventional. Because of this, I'm not sure that I can judge this book on a good/bad binary system like I try to do, so instead I think I'll dive into just one theme that I thought about constantly.
I think the concept that I toyed with the most while reading was the meaning of freedom and the functionality of idealism. There's an underlying tension between absolute freedom of choice and the constraints of life's givens. The book is concerned with freedom and what it means to be free, but also the ethics of that freedom. The more that each woman attempts to justify their individual concerns and goals, the more that they are unable to accept each other and deny the others freedom in order to validate their attempt to give their life meaning. Freedom isn't just a plot of private property in which you kick out the world. It isn't just living up to a subjective and but ultimately external goal. And it isn't an ideal world free of conflict. I think the book's focus is freedom as a process, rather than an outcome, and that the pursuit of one's own freedom is also conditional on the freedom of others. Which necessitates a system that recognizes and evaluates conflicts - to stay and fight through competing interests and choices rather than to run away, to oppress the freedom of others, or to shut down. Ultimately, all four of the POV characters come to terms with freedom as a process from different angles.
I struggled with figuring out how to review this book. I ended up listening to some interviews that Madeline Ffitch did and reading through other reviews on Goodreads and in opinion pieces. I didn't feel like the book was hilarious or even the "delightfully raucous" that I've seen tossed around in some reviews. If this book were a person, I'd call it a "son of a gun" and "old bastard" before buying it a round at the bar. It's gritty, cynical, real, but also filled with a bit of wonder that gleams through the cracks if you manage to catch it just right. Filled and built on the brave imperfections that are associated with the found family trope dialed to the max between three women who learn who they are, how to stand up for that, and eventually, for each other.
I felt that the novel was a decent exploration on the intersectionality of gender, sexual identity, racism, classism, and environmentalism because it forces the reader to pause their initial judgments of the unconventional. Because of this, I'm not sure that I can judge this book on a good/bad binary system like I try to do, so instead I think I'll dive into just one theme that I thought about constantly.
I think the concept that I toyed with the most while reading was the meaning of freedom and the functionality of idealism. There's an underlying tension between absolute freedom of choice and the constraints of life's givens. The book is concerned with freedom and what it means to be free, but also the ethics of that freedom. The more that each woman attempts to justify their individual concerns and goals, the more that they are unable to accept each other and deny the others freedom in order to validate their attempt to give their life meaning. Freedom isn't just a plot of private property in which you kick out the world. It isn't just living up to a subjective and but ultimately external goal. And it isn't an ideal world free of conflict. I think the book's focus is freedom as a process, rather than an outcome, and that the pursuit of one's own freedom is also conditional on the freedom of others. Which necessitates a system that recognizes and evaluates conflicts - to stay and fight through competing interests and choices rather than to run away, to oppress the freedom of others, or to shut down. Ultimately, all four of the POV characters come to terms with freedom as a process from different angles.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Classism and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Racism and Lesbophobia
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