S. F. Prescott

Taut, intimate, and raw.

Chantal V. Johnson is a tenant lawyer and writer. A graduate of Stanford Law School and a 2018 Center for Fiction Emerging Writers Fellow, she lives in New York.

Published April 5th, 2022.

This book is a heartfelt masterpiece. I took my time reading and was immediately transported into Vivian’s world. The author created an immersive world focusing on the long term effects of trauma. It was sad to learn about Vivian’s abusive childhood growing up and how she dealt with it in her day to day life. The choices she made as an adult were tough to read at times but it made sense for her character, especially the types of emotionally unavailable men she picked to date.

The story was thought provoking and authentic, pulling me into each scene and holding my attention until the end. The pace was steady but the chapters were longer than I’m used to. A chapter that has stuck with me the most was a family gathering at her mother, Anita’s, house in which Vivian (reluctantly) attended. Her brief interactions with family members were fascinating to follow along, but one in particular left me feeling nauseated, in which her cousin began flirting with her in such a way that if she were to call out his behavior she’d be shamed and gaslighted (as had happened many times throughout her childhood). This tapped into something deeply personal in my psyche and left me feeling filled with rage. The fact that a lot of girls and women in society are conditioned to ignore the behaviors of boys and men, forced into submission and taught to ignore their own feelings and suppress their personal needs is infuriating.

The way Vivian described the details of various family members left an impact, particularly when abusive circumstances arose between her brother Micheal and one of the children.

Vivian tried to settle and enjoy her family but was distracted, monitoring Michael. Vivian’s warning to the child didn’t matter, because Michael seemed fixated on him. Vivian saw Michael tease him, then later he pushed him gently, and even later her lunged at the child, contemptuously but with a veneer of playfulness to make it seem acceptable. The dynamic felt nauseatingly familiar, as did the fact that as it played out, no one did anything. The men laughed. The women handled Michael’s rage by preemptively scolding the child themselves for Michael to hear, so he would feel justified and maybe back off a little. It was textbook group dysfunction.

Post-Traumatic

For readers who enjoy dark topics, compelling characters, and taut prose. This book will draw out your demons and force you to look them in the eye.

Synopsis:

To the outside observer, Vivian is a success story—a dedicated lawyer who advocates for mentally ill patients at a New York City psychiatric hospital. Privately, Vivian contends with the memories and aftereffects of her bad childhood—compounded by the everyday stresses of being a Black Latinx woman in America. She lives in a constant state of hypervigilant awareness that makes even a simple subway ride into a heart-pounding drama.

For years, Vivian has self-medicated with a mix of dating, dieting, dark humor and smoking weed with her BFF, Jane. But after a family reunion prompts Vivian to take a bold step, she finds herself alone in new and terrifying ways, without even Jane to confide in, and she starts to unravel. Will she find a way to repair what matters most to her?