I'm afraid I find this book to be somewhat disjointed and not particularly engaging. I did not feel particularly drawn to Lou, in fact, I felt detached from her which made much of the novel a chore to get through. I'm not sure I entirely got the point of this book.

You should know up front that The Perishing is literary fiction with a speculative element, so if that's not your thing and you were hoping for something heavier on the SFF piece, it may not be for you.

I really love the project of this book. We get a lot of stories about immortals and time travelers that romanticize the experience, often not taking into consideration the very different experiences Black, Indigenous, and other people of color have had throughout out history, not to mention queer / gender non-conforming folks. This book takes that trope and upends thing by centering a person who, throughout her lives, is always Black and often (though not always) a woman.

The bulk of this story follows her as Lou in 1930's Los Angeles, appearing as a tween girl with no memory who enters foster care. It's a genre blend that is heavily historical fiction, but includes pieces from the future and from even earlier in history as well. It's a book about trauma and oppression, primarily of the Black community, during that time. It also unpacks the vulnerability of showing up in time with no memory, especially if you aren't a white man. The author weaves in a lot of real world history and because the MC is a journalist, her researching and writing news stories is used as a way to share that information with the reader. At times this can be slow and meandering, but then a lot happens at the end. Some of which is a little confusing because the system of how this immortality functions isn't totally fleshed out. There are also some plot threads that fail to fully come together and might make the future parts of the book feel a bit disjointed.

This is the sort of book that either will or won't be your thing, but if it sounds of interest I think it's worth a try. It touches on a lot of topics that are relevant to the world today, while also teaching about the past. The audio narration is beautifully done! I received an audio review copy of this book from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Content warnings include suicidal ideation, self-harm, attempted sexual assault, racial violence, mention of abortion, loss of a loved one, grief, death of children....

DNF at 21% . Although the writing was good, it was hard for me to connect with the characters Furthermore, the way the book was written made it difficult to follow the storyline. Also did not care for the narrator. This may be better read as a physical book. I will probably purchase a hard copy. Thank you for the opportunity to review this title.

Rating: 3.5
I really liked the story and the writing. At times it was hard to follow, but that might be because I was listening to the audiobook instead of reading physically.

This book was okay. I loved the concept of one soul being reincarnated over and over. I just wish that we had seen more of it in the book. Yes, it was a central theme throughout the book but we didn’t get very many details about it until the very end. I would have loved for the author to delve into more timelines and follow more than just Lou and Sarah. I had a hard time getting connected to the characters throughout the book. I loved when she talked about current issues through the lenses of different time periods. The thing that drew me to the book was the aspect of reincarnation, but I was disappointed that it wasn’t a bigger part of the story.

While the author has a clear ability to write beautifully, I personally didn't find this story to be compelling enough to keep my attention throughout.

I would recommend reading this story as a physical book rather than an audiobook. While the narrators had great voices and acting abilities, I simply don't think the material they were given did their talents justice.

The main point of this story- that "aha" moment- doesn't happen until the very end, leaving the reader in confusion throughout majority of the novel. I would like to believe that this could have been different, putting aside the focus on lyrical and contemplative prose for a few chapters and bringing the actual storyline closer to the center. (While I am a sucker for world building and emotional focus in literary fiction, this case was a bit of an overkill.)

I hope the author continues to explore their talents in the future, learning to better focus on major plot points that move the story along rather than continuing to write in and endless circle about less important points.

I really liked listening to this book, but overall I did not care for the book itself. It felt like the author had a lot to say about the world right now, topics such as Black Love Matter, the pandemic, racism, all very important topics, but it seemed like these topics were clumsily thrown together. The topic of a black, female journalist in the 1930s would have been interesting in itself. Not sure it needed the immortal element. It felt like there was things that were left hanging or unexplained. The idea of this book was good, but I feel like it didn't measure up to what the author set out to do.

I finally had to DNF this at 35%. All of my complaints have been said before in other reviews. The first couple of chapters were fascinating but then the past lives bit was barely present and the rest of the story felt disjointed. I didn’t mind the point of view switching between the future life and past life but even subsequent chapters of the same characters felt more like a collection of chronological anecdotes rather than a cohesive story with connected events. I was forcing myself to continue reading it, but after opening it 3 times with the thought of “ugh I don’t feel like listening to this” I decided life is too short and gave up. I would read something else by this author but this book just missed the mark.

Thank you to NetGalley and Recorded Books, RB Media for the early listen. Really enjoyed the story. The narrator was decent. I did by the book from BOTM.

Do not believe the blurb. This book will not appeal to NK Jemisin fans--or at least, not this fan. The writing was fine. The story very interesting in parts, especially in recreating Black life in 1930s Los Angeles (LA). But the pace was slow and sometimes confusing.

The main character is a young Black woman named Louise Willard, who is discovered in a LA alley, with no memory of who she is or how she got there. Lou is put into foster care and becomes one of the first female reporters for a major LA newspaper. There are flashes of Lou's difference--she heals amazingly quickly and has strange dreams of people and times she's never been. Turns out she is one of the handful of immortals in the world--who are being hunted and killed.

The occasional flashbacks to previous lives (and another life of a woman named Sarah in 2117) are more confusing than not. There's little point to the Sarah character, other than as an impassioned commentator on the difficulty of being Black in a racist America. The threat to Lou's life never develops into something really dramatic, despite all the action which happens in the last few chapters.

This novel was most interesting when it portrayed historical events in LA's history, like the controversy and protests around the routing of the famous Chicago-to-LA Route 66, which went through the Black community; the polio epidemic; and the tragic St. Francis Dam flood, which drowned at least 431 people. The novel works well as historical fiction, but not as speculative fiction: there was no explanation about the Immortals, their origin or purpose, nor any real speculation about the consequences of being immortal.

The audio version of the book was ably narrated by Lisa Renee Pitts and Kevin R. Free.

Fascinating book with many layers of complexity. It's definitely with reason that this is one of the more anticipated books of the latter part of 2021. Fantastic stuff.

This book was okay. It was pretty hard to get into. I skipped ahead a bit to finish it. It’s not a bad book just not the book for me.

This one wasn't for me. Thank you for the copy. I did not really enjoy the narrator, but I really struggled with the story as well. I couldn't stay connected to it, and I didn't find a way to be invested.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced audiobook copy

This book just wasn’t for me. Audio was great.

A huge thank you to NetGalley, Recorded Books / RB Media and the publisher for my gifted audiobook.

DNFing this book makes me very sad. I was really looking forward to The Perishing and the synopsis sounded fantastic.

Lisa Renee Pitts and Kevin R. Free are the narrators of this book and I think they did an amazing job. I just could not get into the story.

I don't believe the book itself is a bad book it's just a me thing.

Out of respect to the author and publisher I will not be rating this book and I encourage other readers to seek out positive reviews.

I'll start off with saying that I liked the narrator and that was probably the only reason I continued the book. The storyline started off strong and interesting, but as it progressed my attention began to wane. There was nothing actually wrong with the book, it was just not very captivating. I may not be the audience for it, which is okay. I would give the author another try though.
Thank you NetGalley and publisher for providing me with the audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

My review is going to sound negative, so I want to start on the positives. There's a great story here, and it's very well written. I'm definitely going to check out the author's other books. But I feel like the summary is extremely misleading. I also read somewhere that the book was lesbian/bisexual interest but that's laughable. That's like saying a book is about baseball because a character wears a Yankees cap in one scene. Sarah's entire plot line felt shoehorned in and barely there. And though I didn't hate the performance, I really did not like the narrator to the point where I'll do my best to avoid her in the future. Overall, a fine book with too many flaws to rate higher, but good enough that I feel guilty about it.