Reviews tagging 'Addiction'

The Antelope Wife by Louise Erdrich

4 reviews

katharina90's review against another edition

emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

Always appreciate Erdrich's beautiful prose and her sense of humor. A lot of interesting themes but, as I usually do with her multigenerational novels, I really struggled to keep track of the characters and how they were related or connected to one another.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Genocide, Sexual violence, Kidnapping, and Colonisation

eve81's review

dark reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Genocide

sometimes_samantha_reads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.25

This one just wasn't for me... I was pretty excited about it based on the summary and I tend to enjoy magical realism, but after Part One I started to get lost. There were multiple speakers/narrators so the point of view (1st, 2nd, and 3rd!) was constantly changing and I was confused about who was talking. The time shifted a lot too and it wasn't always clear if we were in the past or present because there was a lot of mixing past and present tense writing within the same chapters. The magical realism was one element that could have been implemented earlier because it seemed it was "tacked on" toward the middle of the book. 

I appreciated the authors sentiment in the afterward about how she went back to revise and added extra bits for some of the characters but I think it made the story more muddled and hard to follow (though I didn't read the original publication). 

The ending, I thought, was way too tidy for how chaotic the rest of the book was. I was disappointed in it. I tries really hard to understand and enjoy this one, but unfortunately it just wasn't my thing. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Genocide, Infidelity, Self harm, Suicide, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Stalking, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Incest, Cultural appropriation, and Gaslighting

readerette's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious slow-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

It took me over half the book for it to really grow in me, but I am glad I finished. The magical, mythical elements gave the story a breathy, hard-to-pin-down feel, which is what made it hard for me to stick to. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Violence, and Blood