Reviews with content warning for Grief - Blindness

Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Blindness by José Saramago

21 reviews

jayvdw's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

What happens when the world turns blind in a matter of weeks? That is the question the book tries to answer. It is an interesting delve into human nature when exposed to a sudden and drastic change in one's senses and conditions.

The book is very interesting and a lot of different events take place. It takes a little while before the main character, the doctor's wife, is presented. The only person left who can see but presents to be blind. Through her eyes we see the conditions put on the blind, the first hastily put up quarantine, fuelled by fear, the conditions that followed, and the world just shortly after everyone has turned blind in a matter of weeks.

The book however is written difficultly, what is said is only separated by a comma before and after the text, and it is not written down who said what. The task of figuring this out is left to the reader. This style fits very well with the book's themes and puts the reader into the mind of the blind.

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comino's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Eerie, revolting at times. So, so good. The story takes you hostage and you cannot stop reading.

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amandadelbrocco's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.0

I had a hard time with the rambling writing style of this. Not only are there no quotation marks, but there are also no line breaks so it made it very difficult to tell who was speaking, or if they were speaking out loud at all. The characters were also all unnamed which added to the confusion.

Plot wise, this was terrifying. It was also gross. I never really thought before about how the world would change so drastically if everyone in it went blind and I don't really want to continue thinking about it. Coupled with the fact that it emphasized just how blind many are to what is happening in society, it is definitely a book that will (unfortunately) haunt me.

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soffeg6's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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abijmieds's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Do yourself a favor and check the content warnings

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gentle_garbage_baby's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

I don't know what to feel about this book. It starts off interestingly enough, with the writing style unique as a wall of text - barely any punctuation. After a few chapters I came to realise that this style

might reflect the blindness of the characters - they can't see - and therefore can't read - so the author makes it harder for the you as the reader to read the book.

I might be looking too much into that but it's how I understood the choice to write like this. After a while the text got easier to read, but it became more boring than anything else.

I have a few problems with the characters as well. If I was to describe the doctor's wife in any way, I would say she's the type of person to run along the tracks when a train is coming towards her; not sideways to get out of the way of it. Many of the characters at some point say things which I think are supposed to be profound and and philosophical, but they mainly came across as annoying and pretentious.

I really wanted to like this one; I thought the premise was super interesting, but in the end whole thing just kind of annoyed me.

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stephanieanneauthor's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

This story is a fascinating, and dark, look at humanity. The whole thing plays out like a social experiment - what would happen to us if we all suddenly went blind? By refusing to name the characters, it adds to the dehumanizing effects of the story. And by occasionally omitting to note which character is speaking, it adds to the confusion. Unfortunately, because of this lack of identifying information, I felt that some scenes dragged on a little too long. But overall, I enjoyed this bleak, hypothetical examination of the human race.

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