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astridrv's review against another edition
Reading this book felt like watching Hard to be a god. Can't recommend it but don't regret it. And the author sure is a poet. All of the content warnings..
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Sexual content, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Antisemitism, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Child death, Violence, Blood, Body horror, Gore, Incest, Eating disorder, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Emotional abuse, Suicide, Grief, Suicide attempt, Vomit, and Excrement
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, and Physical abuse
janey_bones's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
DNF. This book was sad and difficult to read personally. The writing was beautiful and I really loved it but it was triggering for me in the context of early childhood trauma, neglect and grief. Complex and beautiful but not for me, right now.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Physical abuse, Mental illness, and Grief
barelyalex's review against another edition
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Haunting. I think about this book often, there were parts that cut through me. Unabashedly real and important.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Child death, and Emotional abuse
Moderate: Suicide, Pedophilia, Child abuse, Torture, Violence, Vomit, Eating disorder, Incest, Sexual assault, Excrement, Suicidal thoughts, and Antisemitism
Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Murder, Terminal illness, Adult/minor relationship, Religious bigotry, and Self harm
ursa_arlo's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Positives. Marieke Lucas Rijneveld is a master when it comes to the Dutch language. The writing style was wonderfully poetic and each new event layered onto each other to reveal new and hidden meanings. Example spoiler.(Like the last plague, 'Darkness', leading Jas to the basement where she crawls into the freezer to be close to Mathias, which is also the day on which she is supposed to 'go to the other side' of the lake with Hanna.)
The book is also supremely uncomfortable; the things Jas does make sense through her reasoning and her innocent view of things which helps her cope with the death of her brother and the subsequent abuse she suffers. All in all, this is a beautiful book, not for the faint of heart, about the different ways in which grief can spiral and corrupt.
Negatives. This book is as Dutch as can be in its subject matter. The events described are unapologetically horrible and I do not find that appealing. While I could, to an extent, put myself in the shoes of this traumatized, reformist, farmer's family in the early 2000's, I greatly disliked the taboo subjects covered, the animal cruelty, the sexual and physical abuse, etc. You really need to have the stomach for it.
Quote. "'Weet je," zeg ik terwijl ik mijn neus in haar haren duw die naar Zwitsal ruiken. "Ik wil wel groter worden maar niet dat mijn armen mee groeien. Nu pas jij er precise in.' Hannah is even stil en zegt dan: 'Als ze te groot worden, sla ik ze net als mijn wintersjaal gewoon twee keer om mij heen."
The book is also supremely uncomfortable; the things Jas does make sense through her reasoning and her innocent view of things which helps her cope with the death of her brother and the subsequent abuse she suffers. All in all, this is a beautiful book, not for the faint of heart, about the different ways in which grief can spiral and corrupt.
Negatives. This book is as Dutch as can be in its subject matter. The events described are unapologetically horrible and I do not find that appealing. While I could, to an extent, put myself in the shoes of this traumatized, reformist, farmer's family in the early 2000's, I greatly disliked the taboo subjects covered, the animal cruelty, the sexual and physical abuse, etc. You really need to have the stomach for it.
Quote. "'Weet je," zeg ik terwijl ik mijn neus in haar haren duw die naar Zwitsal ruiken. "Ik wil wel groter worden maar niet dat mijn armen mee groeien. Nu pas jij er precise in.' Hannah is even stil en zegt dan: 'Als ze te groot worden, sla ik ze net als mijn wintersjaal gewoon twee keer om mij heen."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide attempt, Abandonment, Child death, Physical abuse, Animal cruelty, Pedophilia, Self harm, Sexual assault, Animal death, Child abuse, Excrement, Death, Grief, and Emotional abuse
Moderate: Blood
Minor: Abortion and Antisemitism
inaczej's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Excrement, Animal death, Sexual harassment, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Suicide, Child abuse, Incest, Suicidal thoughts, Self harm, Pedophilia, Animal cruelty, Physical abuse, Vomit, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Religious bigotry, and Rape
emzilia's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This is an incredibly dark and disturbing novel, but the graphic content is juxtaposed by the poetic and beautiful writing from the perspective of a traumatised, hurting, child. It captures the way we used to think as children and would make logic connections to the things around us. For Jas, however, her sense of the world is informed by tragedy and disfunction.
This is a beautiful novel because it is written beautifully, but the story is anything but.
This is a beautiful novel because it is written beautifully, but the story is anything but.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Grief, Incest, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, and Violence
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Eating disorder, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship
justsayfit's review
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
This is such a well written but highly traumatic book. It deals with family death, depression, eating disorders, abuse, religion and suicide. It is impossible to say that it is a joy to read. In the beginning, it is almost charming to read the ideas of a young girl and her outlook on the world even while she is trying to deal with the death of her brother which she thinks that she is responsible for. The whole family spirals into depression and she tries so hard to make her sense of it. Because her mother in now anorectic and probably a closet alcoholic who drinks in the Celler, the child somehow thinks that the mother is hiding Jews in the cellar and is giving them the food that she herself is not eating. There numbers of such strange thoughts. The child longs so much for consolation and warmth, that she would do just about anything to get any, but her parents are too distracted with their own sorrow and are a bit too “Protestant” to give warmth. Only work gives solace. So many things occur that made me physically and viscerally ill. In the end, I just wanted it all to be over with and, I guess, that was the goal. The reader has no choice but to totally empathise with the child and agree to the only solution that she could devise. It does not end well.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Child abuse, Excrement, Sexual violence, Eating disorder, Antisemitism, Bullying, Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Incest, Animal cruelty, Child death, Grief, Physical abuse, and Self harm
maya7's review
challenging
dark
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Sexual content, Excrement, Incest, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Torture, Animal cruelty, Toxic friendship, and Animal death
Moderate: Child death, Child abuse, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Death, Pedophilia, Eating disorder, and Suicidal thoughts
inceptionistbooks's review
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
“Sadness doesn’t grow, only the space it takes up”
Well, the title fits. It really isn’t a fun read, please take care and look at the trigger warnings beforehand! I’m not even sure that I got all of them below.
If you hate questionable characters, this is not a book for you. The characters here are grieving and have found no way of working through that grief in a healthy way. So we see a family breaking further apart (because the issues were there before the loss) and Jas, the narrator, is consumed by her own grief and her own thoughts. It’s so clear that she has so much that she wants to talk about with someone who will hear it but no way of knowing how to or with whom. Her inner monologue has these moments which are almost heart-breaking in their simplicity but clearly show that she is barely holding it together (because she’s a child with no emotional support whatsoever). Her being constipated really is just an analogy for the fact that keeping shit in will just make things worse. Yes, it’s a major thing in the book and it is gross about it, so be aware of that as well.
I’m very unsure how necessary certain elements were since I have the impression that it would have worked even if they weren’t included. I also wasn’t happy with the ending since it left you just feeling worse with no hope in sight. But I can’t necessary fault the author for going this route.
This is one of those books that I could analyse to pieces because it is certainly well thought out but I would have to reread it and that won’t happen any time soon. This is HEAVY and I need something fun after this.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Animal cruelty, Emotional abuse, Suicide, Excrement, Incest, Animal death, Child abuse, and Sexual violence
Moderate: Toxic friendship, Physical abuse, Antisemitism, Toxic relationship, Death, Eating disorder, and Pedophilia
paltrindome's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
“We find ourselves in loss and we are who we are - vulnerable beings, like stripped starling chicks that fall naked from their nests and hope they'll be picked up again.”
On a rural farm in the wintry Netherlands lives a family of six — ten-year-old Jas, her parents, and three siblings — defined by their unwavering faith in God and the simple agricultural life they have resigned themselves to. When the eldest son Matthies dies while ice skating, the family’s deceptively mundane and normal lives are shaken up as they suffer blow after blow compounding their dysfunctional relationships. At its core, The Discomfort of Evening is about grief, specifically the grief and trauma that haunt the family grappling with Matthies’ death, the foot-and-mouth disease that strikes their farm, and a seemingly unrelenting God they continue to worship. Jas’s mum retreats into herself and gradually stops eating; her dad becomes increasingly violent and distant from his wife; her sister Hanna acts out; her brother Obbe grows to torture animals. But the most afflicted by Matthies’ death is Jas.
This is where the novel shines. Jas, convinced she is to blame for her brother’s death, dons a red coat and for the rest of the novel, refuses to take it off. Rijneveld never explicitly states why she does so but that is intentional. Her coat shields her from thoughts of her brother’s death (however futile it may be) and like how she is swallowed up by the increasingly dirty jacket, she is soon trapped in her own thoughts, obsessed with a search for an answer that was never there to begin with.
“ ‘One day I’d like to go to myself,’ I say quietly, pushing the pin into the soft flesh of my navel. I bite my lip so as not to make a sound, and a trickle of blood runs down to the elastic of my pants and soaks into the fabric.”
Jas’ despair manifests in her heightened desire to leave her community with Hanna, her souring friendship with Belle, and her weird childlike fixation on Jews hiding in her basement from Nazis. In Rijenveld’s novel, however, trauma is more complex, more ambiguous, and perhaps more unusually focused on the disquieting symptoms of grief. There are some genuinely subversive and sexual scenes in the novel, made only more unsettling when you remember Jas is ten years old. In two separate incestuous incidents, Jas, Obbe, and Hanna explore their bodies together and Obbe’s cruelty towards animals translates into violence against his sisters. In another, Jas watches Obbe insert an artificial insemination kit for cows into Belle, captured in detail through Rijneveld’s writing.
However, the explorations of sexuality and violence are not necessarily gratuitous — the scenes serve as Rijneveld’s comment that grief can be repulsive, something that simply cannot be categorised as sadness or anguish. Nevertheless, Rijneveld also depicts the more conventional nature of grief.By the end of Act 2, the family’s cows are slated to be slaughtered due to the foot-and-mouth disease, and Jas’ father and Obbe display more emotion here than at the loss of Matthies. Her father’s bottled emotions spill over, leading to an outburst where he protests the killings with bible verses.
However, the explorations of sexuality and violence are not necessarily gratuitous — the scenes serve as Rijneveld’s comment that grief can be repulsive, something that simply cannot be categorised as sadness or anguish. Nevertheless, Rijneveld also depicts the more conventional nature of grief.
However, the pacing of the first two acts was undermined by the novel’s final act, which lulled in places and writhed slowly towards the ending. After the “climax” of the slaughtered cows, there wasn’t anything particularly notable in Act 3. Trauma that had already been well established was examined again and near the last twenty pages, I was left wondering how Rijneveld would conclude the novel. Jas’s suicide is a very tragic but natural way to end the novel, but the scene where she decided to do so felt so rushed and ruined what could have been a dreadful scene to behold. That may be the point — that there isn’t a specific breaking point for Jas — but the way it was written left me with a sense of “Oh, that’s it?” instead of a looming fear of her death.
The third act thus felt, at best, unnecessary, or at worst, contrived to the point that it tarnished the well-crafted exploration of intergenerational religious trauma.
The third act thus felt, at best, unnecessary, or at worst, contrived to the point that it tarnished the well-crafted exploration of intergenerational religious trauma.
This isn’t to say I regretted reading The Discomfort of Evening. I just wish the ending struck as much of a chord in me as the first 100 pages did. Months after reading this novel, I still have conflicting feelings towards the novel. Grief is rarely so simple, but perhaps it’s best captured in Rijneveld’s own words:
“Lots of people want to run away, but the ones who really do rarely announce it beforehand: they just go."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Mental illness, Child abuse, Incest, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Self harm, Animal death, and Death
Minor: Suicide