A review by arrianne
A Cupboard Full of Coats by Yvvette Edwards
4.0
Intergenerational trauma is a hell of a drug and the story here is all about the daughter of a woman who unintentionally lets a man into the lives of her and her daughter who ruins everything. Jinx lives a normal life just her and her mum until this man comes in and takes that all away, and we meet her full of guilt for her mother’s death while hating her at the same time. Her relationship with her ex and their son is strained and her feelings are locked right down. An old family friend appears from nowhere and thus begins a few nights of disclosure as to the events surrounding Jinx’s mother murder at the hands of her stepdad-to-be.
There’s some good stuff on interpersonal relationships and family dynamics, some teenage politics but I was a bit disappointed by the Happily Ever After as if that kind of trauma can just be fixed by part of the problem showing up in your house and forcing you to dig all that stuff up over a weekend and ABRACADBRA sorted, here we go, got the rest of my life ahead of me.
CW: teenage pregnancy and being sent away, sex between an adult and a teenager (?age) where the power dynamic is all wrong though it’s ‘consensual’, domestic abuse, murder, internalised racism.
There’s some good stuff on interpersonal relationships and family dynamics, some teenage politics but I was a bit disappointed by the Happily Ever After as if that kind of trauma can just be fixed by part of the problem showing up in your house and forcing you to dig all that stuff up over a weekend and ABRACADBRA sorted, here we go, got the rest of my life ahead of me.
CW: teenage pregnancy and being sent away, sex between an adult and a teenager (?age) where the power dynamic is all wrong though it’s ‘consensual’, domestic abuse, murder, internalised racism.