Reviews tagging 'Grief'

The Last True Poets of the Sea by Julia Drake

29 reviews

nmcannon's review against another edition

Last True Poets of the Sea was a sapphic book club pick for June.

I wasn't in the right place to read this book. Both in terms what happening in my life this year and in terms of my expectations going in. Going by the blurb, I was expecting a Twelfth Night retelling with some light personal reflections and, overall, a romantic beach read. Nope. Last True Poets of the Sea is nowhere near a heartwarming comedy! More to my own fault, I thought this was an Adult book, and teenagers going through these heavy, intense mental health troubles squicked me out at times. Heed the content warnings! They're not kidding with this one!

To the book's credit, it's indeed beautifully written. On a sentence level, the novel is ornate without being overwrought, and the teenage voice is believable. Friends noted that their teenage selves would have appreciated this book so much. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, and Grief

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Biphobia, Eating disorder, Sexual content, Medical content, and Car accident

Minor: Transphobia, Forced institutionalization, and Suicide attempt

layla_reads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Drug use, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, and Alcohol

Moderate: Sexual content

Minor: Cancer

marselise's review

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Grief, and Suicide attempt

imstephtacular's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Grief, Suicide attempt, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Ableism, Biphobia, Cursing, Death, Eating disorder, Homophobia, Self harm, Blood, Medical content, Alcohol, and Classism

silver_lining_in_a_book's review

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Death, Grief, and Alcohol

Minor: Car accident

drowning

moodreaderlesbian's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I saw this book on booktok and have been so eager to read it ever since. I'm happy to report that it lived up to my expectations, such a great read. Lovable characters, gripping plot, sapphic girlies. What else could you need?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Drug use, Mental illness, and Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Homophobia, Blood, Vomit, and Grief

lipstickitotheman's review against another edition

adventurous emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Medical content, Grief, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Bullying, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, and Suicide attempt

bisexualwentworth's review

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This was a really good contemporary YA book and a really bizarre take on Twelfth Night. I’ll start with the first bit.

The Last True Poets of the Sea is a book about grief. It’s about history. It’s about trauma. It’s about how people carry those things with them from generation to generation. It has some beautifully complicated and at times tragic sibling relationships. It has a teen sapphic romance that feels realistic for the characters and where they are in their lives.

It also has most of the things that one might expect from a Twelfth Night retelling: A love triangle, a shipwreck, a character named Toby, twins…

But all of those parts of the story are remixed to a degree that didn’t really make sense to me. The shipwreck and the twins (and the gender stuff) are in the past. The love triangle is completely different because Violet falls for Liv first and Orion is for some reason straight. Toby is Violet’s uncle rather than Liv’s. Most of the subplots are cut completely, which makes sense but was still sad (well, I didn’t really miss Malvolio, but I wanted a proper Sir Andrew character, goddammit!). 

The book still works despite these changes to the source material, and they were obviously make deliberately. They just bugged me as a fan of the original play who enjoys seeing new takes on it.

I also have a couple little nitpicks:

Liv refers to herself and Violet as anagrams. This makes sense thematically, but the names Violet and Olivia are NOT anagrams. This was very confusing because the author could have actually given them names that used all of the same letters!

Also, this is a very white book. It makes sense because it’s set in small-town Maine—maybe the whitest part of the US—but why was Violet always remarking on the fact that random side characters were white people when she and all the other characters were also white people? Very odd.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Child death, Death, Drug use, Grief, and Alcohol

Minor: Homophobia

averyrembish's review

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Addiction, Child death, Cursing, Eating disorder, Sexual content, Medical content, Outing, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Drug use, Homophobia, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Car accident, Lesbophobia, and Injury/Injury detail

yvonne_cl's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Medical content, Grief, Car accident, Suicide attempt, and Alcohol

Moderate: Chronic illness, Eating disorder, Homophobia, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Cancer