2025 book 53

 Jesmyn Ward's Salvage the Bones

So here’s the thing, I chose this for book club this month without knowing much about it, besides that it won a million awards. But here’s the other thing, I have read way less in the literary type genre since 2020 bc I’m already depressed about the world, and I don’t want to read depressing books. I was kind of dreading actually starting this once fellow book clubbers said it was “stressful” and “like homework” and “has a lot of dog fighting, like the whole book is dog fighting.” That’s not entirely true, but this book was definitely rough on my delicate vegetarian sensibilities. There’s also a whole thing where the protagonist (a pregnant 15 year old) is doing mythology for her summer reading and she talks about Medea a LOT, and I think this could have been used a little more sparingly. Not to bitch too much about this book, which deserves all the awards it won! The descriptions of Hurricane Katrina are especially visceral and the last section kind of made me love the story. But I will be looking for something fluffy to read next. A-.