A review by endemictoearth
The Rest of the Story by Tal Bauer
challenging
emotional
hopeful
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.0
This book, uhhhh, hmm.
Can a book be a shit sandwich, but the bread is the shit part? Because the beginning of this book is rough (expected to be rough, tho!) and the middle is ooey gooey sweet sappiness, and then, the shit returns (supposed I should have expected it . . . if you subscribe to Chekov's gun but replace gun with "abusive asshole").
There is a lot to like here, but it is bookended by some very traumatic stuff, and the stuff at the end of the book actually affected me a lot more, and I think that the note that 'this book deals with themes of survivorship' possibly isn't sufficient to cover what this book contains. I would recommend this with extreme caution.
Can a book be a shit sandwich, but the bread is the shit part? Because the beginning of this book is rough (expected to be rough, tho!) and the middle is ooey gooey sweet sappiness, and then, the shit returns (supposed I should have expected it . . . if you subscribe to Chekov's gun but replace gun with "abusive asshole").
There is a lot to like here, but it is bookended by some very traumatic stuff, and the stuff at the end of the book actually affected me a lot more, and I think that the note that 'this book deals with themes of survivorship' possibly isn't sufficient to cover what this book contains. I would recommend this with extreme caution.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Physical abuse, Violence, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail