Wow. From the very first page, I was highlighting and taking notes. This is such a powerful, intellectual, and perceptive book. I knew I would like this, and the story was so well-crafted that I was engrossed throughout the whole reading experience.

Johnson's writing is sharp, engaging, and criticizes the US medical and criminal justice system through the lens of a Black woman.

Highly recommend.

3.5 stars. Dark yet brimming with dark humor, POST-TRAUMATIC examines trauma and its impact through a refreshingly non-white lens while also serving as a rebuke of the U.S. medical and judicial systems.

Almost everyone in this book is messy, and I don't mean in a bad way. The characters have stuff going on, each going through different things, yet they're rendered multidimensional and complex by yet harming one another in some way, thereby illustrating the impact and often cyclical nature of trauma. The main character Vivian perhaps best embodies this point through her current struggles with various issues - be it insecurity, body dysphoria, an eating disorder, looking to men for validation, infidelity, etc. - borne from her traumatic and abusive childhood experiences.

I also like how the novel delves into the topic of family, which is even more complicated for POCs as a result of historical exploitation and intergenerational trauma. Is blood truly thicker than water? Can familial bond justify neglecting self-care and having one's boundaries crossed? The author explores both sides of the argument well and this aspect is thought-provoking.

The exploration of social issues are enjoyable as well, such as the intersectionality of identities and the exploitative medical and justice systems. The former is often darkly comic and witty, and the latter is adeptly shown, perhaps aided by the author's personal and professional experiences.

Though I personally think the writing could be more distinctive, overall I enjoy this novel. For its representation and the issues it raises and explores, POST-TRAUMATIC is a novel that's long overdue.

It took a while to get into this book, but by the end, I had a really good sense of the main character and her motivations. Vivian, a thirtysomething public interest lawyer drifting around Brooklyn, is struggling to overcome her abusive childhood and find some sort of balance and community. She spirals downward until she makes the decision to cut off her family; even after that, she freaks out and causes various scenes until she is finally shocked back to reality. I loved the very realistic depictions of her making the right choice for her mental health and cutting off her family while working with a therapist, and hope this book can do more to normalize leaving toxic people behind.

"Post-traumatic" follows Vivian, a lawyer for a psychiatric hospital. Starting with a scene where she gets attacked by a patient, it perfectly sets out how everything's going to be for her in this book, messy.
Nothing much happens, in terms of plot, the only thing that we (could say) constantly follow is how much she was harmed by her family, them being repeatedly abusive, for sure, influenced what she is today.
One aspect that I really enjoyed was Vivian being self aware, this isn't something people talk about often but it's very common and it was nice to see how well depicted it was. I was also so intrigued to hear what she got to say, I love it when authors make their characters talk about different topics and just, be smart.
Vivian is was hard protagonist to get into, I think a lot of people are going to put her in the "dislike able mc" list but she's so much more than that.
Overall, one of my favourites character studies, or just books where we follow a woman through her life and nothing happens, it was "realistic" and a different perspective since it always tends to be a really privileged white woman getting to hate the world with no apparent reason and yes, I do love that, but I love it more when we can get an introspective way as to why someone is the way they are. I hope the author keeps delivering!!

I thought I was going to love this book, and I ended up just liking it. The books makes a lot of stylistic choices that prevented my full absorption into the story. Post-Traumatic is predominately an internal monologue told from a third person narrative, a structure that lends itself to a lot of explaining/telling rather than showing that resulted in in a lack of reader empathy, despite everything Vivian has and is experienced. The last third of the book felt much more veritable, especially Vivian’s conversations with Lisa, and it redeemed the book as a whole for me.

Nonetheless, style is subjective and I think a lot of people will enjoy this book.

This was a stand-out in a month of great forthcoming fiction. The main character is a lawyer in NYC, working with and advocating for traumatized youth. She herself, too, is traumatized -- by her family background and upbringing, her self-loathing, and her seemingly tireless dedication to trying to prove that none of it matters to her, that she is above the emotionality of life. On the inside however she's extremely vulnerable -- she starves herself to appear beautiful to others, especially men, and she seems to be trapped unwittingly in a loop of pretending, keeping herself at a level of remove, then obsessing when relationships do not work out. This was a great coming of age story and I thought it illustrated beautifully what it's like to grow up poor and working class, then to feel alienated from your grown-up, educated and middle-class professional self. It was sad yet with a small spark of hope for self-actualization at the end. Thank you!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me an ARC of this novel. All thoughts on the book are my own.

I *loved* this book. It follows a young, 30-something, Black Latina lawyer named Vivian as she navigates her life. It's a snapshot in time, roughly a year, of her slow progression into self-destruction. Vivian is a messy, deeply complex, and flawed character. I found her, in many ways, extremely relatable.

It's almost hard to review this, because nothing really happens (yes it's one of those books, so if you don't like that type of literary fiction, this might not be for you), but the text explores such hard topics like trauma, PTSD, child abuse, sexual assault, sexual harassment, and disordered eating. It looks at how trauma lives in the body and affects the body (and mind). It unpacks how the coping mechanisms we had as children in order to survive sometimes don't serve us as adults––they can even greatly hinder us or lead to self-destructive behavior.

The one thing I would have loved to have seen more of, and it's why this didn't quite reach five star territory for me, were more insights into Vivian's relationships with her friends and family. We've given a lot of information about these relationships, but not often shown these relationships in play. Plus, I loved her friend Jane, and would have liked to have seen them together just a bit more. However, this is a relatively short novel, so I understand why we got what we did.

This is a prime example of a book that found me at just the right time. I can't wait to own a physical copy of this, because it needs to a permanent spot in my book collection.

Anorexics are just insufferable. Vivian is not a sympathetic character. She’s a real bitch. Hooray for Vivian! We love you and we love to hate you! Being in Vivian’s mind made me hate myself. Yes, even more than usual! The judgement of thin women, yikes. It’s as bad as when men do it to you. Thanks for the ARC.

I couldn’t put this down. Protagonist Vivian has a great mind, but the intelligence behind POST TRAUMATIC is greater, skillfully revealing Vivian’s gaps in self awareness. The satisfaction this gives the reader is directly proportionate to Vivian’s intelligence; I both believed she was smarter than me and also that she might genuinely be lacking insight due to her past trauma. I also love the case POST TRAUMATIC ultimately makes for stories as succor and writing as a way to tame and channel an overactive mind.

But the greatest succor in this novel is female friendship, and the depiction of Vivian’s relationship with her best friend Jane is pitch perfect. Vivian seems to be the most herself in this relationship; although she performs for laughs in a similar way to how she does for her romantic interests, Jane, unlike any of the men in the novel, meets her as an intellectual and spiritual equal. Therapy is also given a fair place within the novel as an avenue through which Vivian’s vulnerability and complexity are augmented rather than reduced. Vivian is hilarious and doubts therapy will help her since she already has the emotional distance necessary to joke about her trauma--the ultimate goal of recovery, she quips at one point, and there’s definitely some truth to this. But the most vivid parts in the novel for me were when it brought me close to tears. Each of these involved, in some way, Vivian’s proximity to a child and, in particular, observing a child interact with another adult. “Just…sad,” she says at one point about how these interactions make her feel, which is perhaps the only point in the novel where she seems at a loss for words, and it was here that she became so real to me it broke my heart.

Trigger warning for eating disorders, including discussion of weights and measurements.

POST-TRAUMATIC is billed as a 'new kind of survivor story' and completely lives up to that promise -- I was blown away by this razor-sharp, darkly hilarious, smart-as-hell debut novel. Vivian is a successful lawyer and advocate for the mentally ill, and she's also a hyper-intellectual smokeshow constantly trying to outrun her dysfunctional family and the memories of her abusive, unstable childhood. She possesses a complex and nuanced understanding of the systemic disadvantages that contribute to her family's general shittiness, but when she ponders cutting them off completely, her friends are horrified. So, ok, Vivian has a little bit of a breakdown and things get WILD. This novel is a wickedly funny, devastatingly smart commentary on the aftermath of trauma -- both physical/sexual child abuse and the everyday trauma of being a Black Latina in America. An incredible read!

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book. I was very excited to get into this book to see how the main character who is Black/Latina navigates the world as an attorney for the mentally ill while dealing with her own trauma.

I, however, cannot say that I enjoyed this book. It started off strong but the story quickly became all over the place. Both Vivian and her bestfriend were insufferable and their obsession/frequent conversations about deviancy was very creepy as well. Vivian really needed the same kind of help that her clients were receiving.

Short novel about a woman's neuroses, her complicated relationships with her friends, and her separating from her toxic family.

Vivian is a lawyer for patients in psychiatric wards. Simultaneously, she relates to some of them because her family is abusive, and she falls for men who dump her after a few dates. Her self esteem is low and she abruptly quits her job. After a disturbing family reunion, she goes into a tailspin and takes her pain out on her friends.