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tysuckz's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
It was definitely challenging to read. I found the style of writing to be hard to read, but it was supposed to be written as though from the main character directly... so the grammatical errors were intentional, but challenging to read through.
I don't find war books to be my type of thing, so it was challenging in that aspect also! However, I did find that some parts of it were interesting, especially the more tense parts ie meeting Caught His Horse First!
I was getting bored half way through because of the writing style and it felt like a chore to read. Though it did pick up towards the end and I loved that Thomas is actually Thomasina! I picked up the book thinking it was a gay novel when in actual fact it was gay & trans? there weren't many mentioning in the reviews of this so I'm unsure if people just didn't pick that up or if I just interpreted it wrong? There were a lot of reviews discussing how they thought it was either incredibly improbable that they could've lived so freely as Gay Men in the 1850s (& the opposite... that it wasn't too surprising as back then lots of men shared beds with men). Regardless! Not too many mentionings of Thomas/Thomasina.
The ending was almost incredibly devastating although I did assume something sad would happen, including John Cole being dead after Thomasina & Winona came back from war, this didn't happen... and it just kept building up !!! I knew it was written from Thomasinas perspective so they had to still be alive... or the alternative was that they had died before finishing it
I did notice this is a series and that there is a book written by Winona, which I have a copy of the first chapter of within this book and it seems to be written in a more pleasant way so maybe I'll pick that up lol.
I don't find war books to be my type of thing, so it was challenging in that aspect also! However, I did find that some parts of it were interesting, especially the more tense parts ie meeting Caught His Horse First!
I was getting bored half way through because of the writing style and it felt like a chore to read. Though it did pick up towards the end and I loved
The ending was almost incredibly devastating
I did notice this is a series and that there is a book written by Winona, which I have a copy of the first chapter of within this book and it seems to be written in a more pleasant way so maybe I'll pick that up lol.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Racial slurs, and Racism
lavendl's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Racism, Colonisation, and War
Moderate: Child death, Sexual assault, Vomit, Grief, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Cannibalism and Alcohol
dosymedia's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
For that lyrical prose packed with western imagery, for the choice of protagonists (Thomas McNulty, an Irish immigrant who comes to identify as a woman, and John Cole, their mixed race lover and constant companion of 20+ years), for the devastating brutality laid directly beside the sublime, I was reminded of A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara.
This is a crucible of suffering that follows the lives of career soldiers through two wars and their settling in the western frontier. That suffering is the point; its immersion uses beauty to make the inane hurt. Despite its choice of characters, those characters only underline the danger of this developing America, as each member of the queer family formed is uniquely othered and thus, at risk in certain company.
They themselves are held back from the reader. We don't come to know Thomas, John, or their adopted daughter all that well. We're thirty percent into the book before we are absolutely certain of Thomas and John's relationship, revealed unceremoniously with a kiss that is special due to its need to be hidden, and regular, since its ease implies our first witnessing of it is only one of many for them.
And I didn't mind that here, perhaps because Aidan Kelly so beautifully rendered Thomas' narration, it only felt like a quirk of Thomas' character to keep their private life from the audience.
This is a crucible of suffering that follows the lives of career soldiers through two wars and their settling in the western frontier. That suffering is the point; its immersion uses beauty to make the inane hurt. Despite its choice of characters, those characters only underline the danger of this developing America, as each member of the queer family formed is uniquely othered and thus, at risk in certain company.
They themselves are held back from the reader. We don't come to know Thomas, John, or their adopted daughter all that well. We're thirty percent into the book before we are absolutely certain of Thomas and John's relationship, revealed unceremoniously with a kiss that is special due to its need to be hidden, and regular, since its ease implies our first witnessing of it is only one of many for them.
And I didn't mind that here, perhaps because Aidan Kelly so beautifully rendered Thomas' narration, it only felt like a quirk of Thomas' character to keep their private life from the audience.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Genocide, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, and Violence
Moderate: Animal death