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A review by soniajoy98
The Descent of the Drowned by Ana Lal Din
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
slow-paced
- 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
this book was like a punch to the gut in the best and worst ways possible. trigger warning for everything but specifically sexual assault and suicide and torture and child abuse in all possible forms and also violence against trans and intersex people. this book is truly amazing but also very hard to read, which it should be considering the real life parallels, but still, read with caution.
spoiler-ish stuff below and a reminder: trigger warning !!
Roma referring to her body as her shell broke me a little bit, and i spent the entire book just praying that nobody hurt her again and we got SO CLOSE but then everything with Chirag happened (i can’t even think about him right now without wanting to burst into tears for how awful his life ended and how he deserved so much more) and Roma is back in that dark place but it’s worse and she’s so deeply traumatized and the moments before her suicide attempt when she’s yelling at herself just made my entire body go cold. i started off interested in Levi and i’m still interested but i couldn’t care about him when Roma was suffering i needed to know she would be okay. i’m still in shock from this book and can’t write much more rambling nonsense but i want to make it clear i loved reading this even when it made me sob and have a mini breakdown it’s amazingly well written and the perspective of Roma is so wonderful and terrible and incredible all at once. especially reading this today after the mass shooting committed against 8 Asian women in Atlanta, this book filled with the lasting effects of violence against Asian and Middle Eastern women, but also the strength of those women and their incredible ability to survive was really powerful to read. rest in power to those taken from us too soon by racism and sexism, you deserved so much more and we will fight for you
spoiler-ish stuff below and a reminder: trigger warning !!
Roma referring to her body as her shell broke me a little bit, and i spent the entire book just praying that nobody hurt her again and we got SO CLOSE but then everything with Chirag happened (i can’t even think about him right now without wanting to burst into tears for how awful his life ended and how he deserved so much more) and Roma is back in that dark place but it’s worse and she’s so deeply traumatized and the moments before her suicide attempt when she’s yelling at herself just made my entire body go cold. i started off interested in Levi and i’m still interested but i couldn’t care about him when Roma was suffering i needed to know she would be okay. i’m still in shock from this book and can’t write much more rambling nonsense but i want to make it clear i loved reading this even when it made me sob and have a mini breakdown it’s amazingly well written and the perspective of Roma is so wonderful and terrible and incredible all at once. especially reading this today after the mass shooting committed against 8 Asian women in Atlanta, this book filled with the lasting effects of violence against Asian and Middle Eastern women, but also the strength of those women and their incredible ability to survive was really powerful to read. rest in power to those taken from us too soon by racism and sexism, you deserved so much more and we will fight for you
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Suicide attempt, Murder, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Drug abuse, Drug use, Miscarriage, and Medical trauma