Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens by Shankari Chandran

6 reviews

sop17hie's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad 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

4.5

Much sadder and brutal than I expected from the beautiful cover

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Genocide, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

vivisms_82's review against another edition

emotional sad

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Good book and worth reading. I'm in two minds though - I like many (if not most) of the book - the detailed description of the war in Sri Lanka, British colonisation, the immigrant experience when you look different, have an accent, pray differently etc - I get that. The racism and violence are absolutely valid and I get what she was trying to say but it became too much too soon in escalation that I think it lost some of it's impact, reducing it's believability as a whole when lumped all together like that in a short period of time. I was thinking "yes, this is a book we need right now" but then it became relentless in bringing the point home and I was a little bummed. I'm glad it's become part of book clubs and people are discussing some topics that they otherwise mayn't have felt comfortable bringing up. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Death, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Dementia, Grief, Murder, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Sexual violence

terranovanz's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Infidelity, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Islamophobia, Medical content, Dementia, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

samfictiondistilling's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

• 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

4.5

I've just finished listening and I'm absolutely devastated. So glad to have read it though.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Genocide, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Xenophobia, Islamophobia, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail

danajoy's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense

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

4.0

The beautiful, whimisical cover and cosy sounding name makes this novel appear to be a light choice. Based on those you'd likely be forgiven in believing that this was a warm, safe, story about a nursing home.

This is instead a deeply important but difficult and confronting story about survival, racism and violence. The content is highly confronting. 

The Sri Lankan civil war is not a topic I was very aware of. 

This story is brutal and important.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Hate crime, Racism, Torture, Violence, Islamophobia, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Rape

witmol's review against another edition

challenging dark funny 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

4.5

An outstanding use of multiple narrators and time shifts that elucidates modern Australian discourse about racism and migration through the lens of the Sri Lankan civil war and the effects of genocide and historical revisionism. 

With a genuinely diverse cast of characters – old and young, of different ethnicities, religions and cultures and a range of occupations – Chandran shows the effects of both racism and free speech rhetoric and dives deep into the idea of legacy, from the matriarch with a secret identity, to the self-professed good bloke who denies responsibility for his attitude and the orderly whose past determines his actions.

I also need to mention that this is actually quite a funny book, both in its sharply observed descriptions ("According to party rumour, he was former special ops, and there was something about him that made all of them want to salute him and delete their search histories") and eloquently scathing in its skewering of politics and political optics ("The only thing worse than white male privilege was white female privilege. It had the entitlement of male privilege, a heavy dose of fake empathy for the disadvantaged, and complete blindness to the intersectional nature of its own advantage").

The funniest is probably the shade thrown by the author's avatar, though I grant not everyone will find this as amusing as I did: "@sarahbyrnes_author Hosting Bollywood-themed birthday parties does not make you culturally competent. Also, chai means tea. There’s no such thing as tea tea."

There's a lot of heavy stuff in here about war and trauma but also a lot of light, particularly the way the seniors are valued and cared for. Come for the story, stay for the tea.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Hate crime, Racism, Torture, Violence, and War

Minor: Child death, Death, Racial slurs, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Islamophobia, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail