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Curse of Souls by Niranjan - BBNYA 2024 - 15th Place Finalist

Curse of Souls by Niranjan Curse of Souls was the 15th place finalist in BBNYA 2024! Queer Rep Summary: Gay/Achillean Main Character(s). *I received a free review copy in exchange for an honest review of this book.  About BBNYA BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists (16 in 2024) and one overall winner. If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website  https://www.bbnya.com/  or take a peek over on Twitter  @BBNYA_Official . BBNYA is brought to you in association with the book blogger support group  @The_WriteReads . Book Details LENGTH: 158 Pages GENRE: Fantasy, Romance AGE CATEGORY: Adult DATE PUBLISHED: January 19, 2024 RECOMMENDED: Highly Bookshop (Affiliate):   https://bookshop.org/a/12882/9798224037568 Indie Story Geek:   https://indiestorygeek.com/story/8624 Amazon Link: https://a.co/d/fML4oX2 (Canada) ht...

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Beloved begins as a slow-burning and haunting story about living on after the worst days, slowing winding around how to tell those days without shattering again.

The story rotates narrators and jumps back and forth in time in a way that was a little confusing at first, but the narrators have distinct voices and there’s mostly just Now and one big past event for each narrator as far as jumping around in time is concerned, so it became pretty easy to keep track of where the story was. The lack of demarcation with each switch helped to build the feeling that the past isn’t really gone for any of them. The story is about reckoning with the past in different ways, and how they deal with it. It’s also a ghost story, a haunting of the past refusing to leave. As the story develops it begins depicting the past events which were just hinted at earlier, circling back to them from different perspectives and catching slightly different bits of time surrounding a few very pivotal moments. It had the effect of helping me to ease into a very traumatic story.

The middle third of the book (leading up to the end of part 1) is absolutely devastating, enough story threads are in place for it to slowly wind to a set of riveting and horrifying explanations. This book is also filled with care, for the characters and the readers. The most brutal events are told from the perspective of someone who has already survived them (or who we know is around later on, at least), and that makes the current events feel manageable even when they’re differently awful. There are multiple narrators but it usually wasn’t hard to figure out whose perspective was in each section because their narrative styles were different enough to be distinct while having enough in common for the changes in POV to not be jarring.

I like the ending, it feels like it meets the characters at a place that makes sense for everything they've been through, both before the book began and during the main timeline. They're not all the way better, not by a long shot, but they're working on it, each in their own way.

CW for ableism, animal abuse (not depicted), sexual assault (not depicted), slavery (backstory), child death, pregnancy, childbirth, racial slurs, racism, assault, death.

Clear Your Shit Readathon 2020 prompt: Intimidating book

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"Beloved" in cursive writing on a plain red background.


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