I was not a fan of this novel. I found the main character insufferable in. away that didn't feel purposeful. It stressed me out and made me sad. It felt like a deeply delusional book without any balance. But perhaps I am just not into this sort of thing.

I don't know why I put off reading this book and it definitely did start a little slow but ultimately it was an important read. I really enjoyed how much I fell between liking and disliking the main character. She was too relatable at times as well.

Very appreciative to netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book. Unfortunately, this one just wasn't for me. The stream of consciousness and inner monologue style kept me from really engaging with either the plot (such as it was) or the character. I understand that the narrative style was probably in keeping with the after effects of the trauma the character suffered, but unfortunately I just couldnt relate to the book. I suppose not every book is for everyone, and others may relate more to both the subject matter and the writing style.

“The best writing was like a good friend, in the way that it gave you permission to be yourself.”

This belongs in the unhinged women literary canon, and that's a compliment. I struggled at the beginning to get into the book because the main character had some awful things and fatphobic opinions, but as you dig deeper into the story, you can tell that said opinions are integral to explaining what's going on in her mind. The MC is problematic and struggling and oversharing and constantly collecting her thoughts in the hope of becoming something more than her thoughts, and I thought this book was one-of-a-kind.

“A novel about the ‘long-lasting cognitive effects of traumatic overwhelm. It’s a comedy.’”

Here’s another new voice and another ARC I was lucky enough to receive from the publisher but failed to ever pick up. Then it was announced as a contender for the Center for Fiction’s Debut of the Year and that was finally enough to get my ass in gear.

Post-Traumatic is, you guessed it, about a woman who has some severe PTSD stemming from an abusive childhood. The book follows Vivian along as she attempts to overcome her past in order to be a functioning adult in the present. It’s heartbreaking at times and also brutally and darkly funny . . .

“White people loved this book . . .”

“How is it?”

“Well, I was kind of into parts of it but then the narrator said something like ‘The worst thing about child abuse is empathizing with your abuser’ and I got annoyed. I’m like, no. The worst part about child abuse is being the only girl in your kindergarten class with HPV.”

This one won’t be for everyone. You have to be okay with a broken person and truly bleak subject matter. It definitely comes off as a debut at times when Johnson veers away from her characters’ voices and leans into the territory of “thank you for coming to my Ted Talk,” but she has something to say and I’m here for it. 3.5 Stars and rounding up because fresh is fabulous.

Post-traumatic 3/5 stars..Vivian an Afro latina waif , the unlikable protagonist is a lawyer in a psychiatric hospital. Coming from humble and traumatic roots her success and distancing her from her dysfunctional family is vital. As a trauma survivor she is hyper vigilant and neurotic. She has daydreams of being murdered on the subway. She is constantly judging herself and others harshly. As a trauma survivor I found some parts of the character relatable. She was constantly trying to prove herself in a Eurocentric world. She was obsessive about her weight and internally struggled with her hair texture.As a plus size Afro Latina her struggles were felt. Her hilarious and embarrassing antics made me feel empathetic and dislike her at the same time. I could not get in board with the eating disorder and body dysmorphia which should qualify as a character in this book. There is definitely a trigger warning for fat phobia as well as colorism, racism, abuse, and a host of other TW. This book was not so heavy it was depressing. The saving grace was Vivian’s relationship with her bestie Jane. Imagine a neurotic Erykah Badu. Vivian’s antics to embarrass and discredit her nemesis Paula a perfect and white “rich bitch “ are the funniest moments in this book. Overall it was a comedic take into a deep dive of mental illness and the psych nurse in me could not hate it.

I wanted to love this uncomfortable, difficult book but unfortunately despite the gorgeous prose it was a DNF for me. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the E Arc

This made me uncomfortable in the best way possible. Very raw and honest about ED and SA but also shows the other side of healing and the difficult decisions it takes to heal. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone but it was perfect for me.

Vivian’s main goal in life at the start of the book is keeping up appearances. She’s able to project that image fairly well in her professional and dating life, but her inner dialogue tells a very different story. Vivian is battling a lot of different demons all at once, and not even she can explain where these feelings come from. Her thoughts are often self-critical, she is jealous of others, and her relationships with friends and family are not where she’d like them to be.
It took awhile to warm up to Vivian. It’s not that she’s unlikeable, but so much of her personality feels like a performance. She trusts very few people, and the ugly thoughts she has towards others make her hard to love. We read her thoughts that she would never vocalize. We all have these thoughts. It makes her relatable but also makes you want to snap her out of it. She’s bratty. She is self-centered.
Vivian makes some big changes in her life after a particularly low weekend, and finally we begin to see the walls come down. This was the moment I was hoping for, and I am so glad the author, Chantal V. Johnson, gave her main character the chance to evolve past the woman we met in Chapter 1. Once Vivian has this change in perspective, you know she is going to make it out ok.
I thought this was an excellent story about coming to grips with your own narrative and how embracing that makes you stronger for it. Though initially I expected more of the book to be focused on Vivian’s career, I was actually very glad it was much more than just a book about a psychiatric hospital. This was real life, everyday, content that will be relatable for so many, and the perspective from which Johnson chooses to tell it felt modern and fresh. I would love to read more by Chantal, perhaps even a sequel to Vivian’s story.

I really wanted to love this book, but unfortunately it ended up being a Do Not Finish for me. It was decent, but not a captivating read.

This novel was difficult to get through, but not because the quality of the story was bad; rather, it was the raw and unfiltered look into the character's existence as a person who has lived through trauma that made it an exhausting and at times painful read. The main character, Vivian, experienced trauma in her childhood. Additionally, as a Black Latine woman in our society, she contends with a constant barrage of misogynoir that adds to her stressors. Despite the fact that she is greatly accomplished and talented, she exists in a heightened state of anxiety and low self-worth that flows out of the pages in unyielding waves. It's a lot as a reader to take in, so you can only imagine what it must be like to exist like that, day in and day out. Vivian's defenses and continuous attempts to survive eventually come to a head, and that's where you get a glimpse into the vulnerability that she tries incredibly hard not to show. The story does not take us through a complete journey of healing (and I'm glad it doesn't because that would seem disingenuous), but it provides enough hope to suggest that Vivian can and will find ways to lean into her strengths and connections. That feeling better IS a possibility for her when before it seemed out of reach. Even as it lays the reality of trauma and mental health struggles down reallllllllly thick, I would still consider it to be a hopeful book.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an E-ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

It took me a minute to get into this novel because it was uncomfortable, a little stressful, and not at all what I was expecting in terms of plot. That being said, by the time I reached the end of the novel, it had far exceeded whatever incorrect expectations I had going into it. Post-traumatic’s narrative, mostly-internal monologue is skillfully written and offers an important perspective that was gripping and felt lived-in. I have no doubt that this book and, more specifically, the panoply of feelings the experience of reading it invoked, will sit with me for a while.

"Post-Traumatic" by Chantal V Johnson is a refreshing character study of a life of someone with PTSD. Our attention is focused on Vivan who works as a lawyer in a psychiatric facility and on page one we are fronted with an attack on Vivian by her client and the mess does not cease to follow her.

Vivian is depicted as a fully fleshed out person and the relationship she has with her best friend put a smile on my face. Fortunately, their relationship depicts a bond between two women that aren't pit against each other, rather, two girls that have an everlasting love and respect for one another. CW: Vivian struggles with her body image (ED depictions), her relationship to her direct family (abusive), and searching for a man to love her back... but thats hard to do when it feels like everyone is on the verge of attacking her or sexually assaulting her.

This novel is incredibly nuanced and in my opinion is the most realistic telling of the "post - traumatic" experience.

Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for the eARC; Out NOW!

I wanted to love Post Traumatic, but it was not my favorite. It has a lot of trigger warnings, but I think the hardest for me to read was the eating disorder and the way the main character thought about food. I think the overall writing was very unique and the author managed to tell the main characters story and explain her trauma in an effective way.

To say I loved this book is an understatement. This book spoke to the core of what it looks like to live as a survivor and live through trauma. The characters leap off the page and Vivian was such a rich main character. The book is beautifully written and intense but so worth the read. I will say that you need to be in the right headspace to tackle this one though.

Post-traumatic by Chantal V. Johnson is a vivid and visceral read. The reader is introduced to Vivian, a Black, female attorney representing institutionalized clients who are diagnosed with a range of psychological issues. Vivian experiences constant flooding due to her own Complex PTSD. The book is less focused on plot and more concerned with the experience Vivian is having in her mind and body. The behavioral, psychological and mood changes become more frequent as the self medicating effects of liquor, weed, sex, and work lose their impact. Even the relationships Vivian relies on for support start to crumble and her tendency to daydream prevents her from navigating conflict, especially with her best friend, Jane, proactively.

The feeling of safety is not just a goal of treating trauma, it’s an important prerequisite to the healing work. We journey with Vivian on her search for stability and we watch her move through the world with the constant flooding of racing thoughts, flashbacks, and re-experiencing of real and perceived threats in the body.

Vivian’s nightmares get worse everyday and the further she goes into isolation the more she distances herself from family. The reader wonders if the distancing is making things better or more severe. When we meet Vivian’s family at the BBQ we understand why for some people distance is required for survival. I was so happy for Vivian when she finally finds the strength and support to set and honor her boundaries with family. She knows the truth about what happened when she was little and she doesn’t need to remain connected to anyone who would gaslight her or invalidate her experience.

I appreciated the dialogue around protecting the Black family unit- a value that sometimes makes both starting therapy and sustaining it difficult for many. Jane’s stance that she refuses to cut off her toxic family because- “Family and church were the only reliable structures Black people had” will make the reader evaluate their own values and ideals as it regards mental health and family dynamics that play against that.

I love books that deal with mental illness and I thought Post Traumatic was a great read and very original yet relatable.

Post-traumatic is a debut novel by Chantal V. Johnson and it tells the story of Vivian, a lawyer who is an advocate for patients who suffer from mental illness. Yet , Vivian deals with her own mental illness and and self medicates in different ways (relatable to most people who suffer from mental health issues). The rest of the book tells of Vivian's story as she spirals.

Overall, an interesting read

Thank you to Little Brown and Net Galley for the eARC

While the Elif Batuman quote made me want to read this immediately, I was ultimately disappointed and did not finish the book. I normally love this kind of contemporary fiction, complicated female narrator dealing with past trauma, especially a woman of color. I like dark humor and an obsessive, observational style. This story largely succeeds in these themes. In particular, the narrator’s controlling tendencies hit the right note, as well as the use of surveillance and camera angle as a way to create tone when the narrator is working at a psychiatric hospital in New York City.

However, the descriptions of the narrator’s eating disorder were so poorly written and off-putting that I had to stop reading. What makes it even more unfortunate is that these scenes with the main focus on the eating disorder read distinctly bad compared to the rest of the story. The writing is just worse.

I am generally someone who stays away from eating disorder fiction not because of a personal relationship to it but because I find its use in fiction as a signal for a woman’s control issues trite. This story did not manage to get away from this stereotype. For the narrator in Post-Traumatic, I found her issues with control, obsession, and insecurity already obvious in other aspects of the story so the eating disorder felt too on the nose.

Also, I also found the reference to explicit weight and size in reference to the eating disorder done in bad taste.

Maybe I will return to this book if another reviewer can convince me to keep reading but as of right now I do not plan on returning to it. But I can see how this would be a favorite for the right readers and I hope it reaches them.

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.