Reviews with content warning for Cancer - Trust

Reviews tagging 'Cancer'

Trust by Hernán Díaz

42 reviews

clairebartholomew549's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

This book didn’t really work for me. The world of stocks and trades just doesn’t make sense to me and I don’t find it interesting at all, and so much of this story didn’t spark anything exciting for me. I like the concept of alternating narratives and enjoyed reading the different perspectives, but it didn’t feel like there were any great revelations or big changes between one to one. I can see how this would be impactful for people, but it just didn’t do it for me.

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sarahbook's review against another edition

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emotional informative mysterious slow-paced

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

4.0

The back of the book gave almost nothing away. And the inside of the book was also quite a mystery. So much of this book took place during my historical wheelhouse which was great. There were a lot of characters to keep track of. It was exceptionally well-written. I will likely continue thinking about this book after several days.

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harperphillips96's review against another edition

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Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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asims723's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious slow-paced

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

4.5

The review I wish I had seen myself before reading this:
Part 1: Bonds, a fiction novel about a wealthy Wall Street couple
Part 2: Unfinished Autobiography by "real life" inspiration for the MMC in Bonds
Part 3: Memoir of the Unfinished Autobiography's ghost writer
Part 4: Journal of "real life" inspiration for FMC in Bonds

In my opinion, Part 3 could have been left out.

I haven't read anything exactly like this before.

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seventhswan's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

3.5

This book was the definition of "trust the process" for me. It's not that it didn't get going straight away - there was a clear plot and interesting characters from the start - but I had no idea at all where it was going until midway through the third section, so I spent a lot of time worried that I was trying to understand the intricacies of the stock market for nothing.

If I'm honest, the first two sections bored me a little and I found myself skim reading. They were clearly excellently crafted and I couldn't fault the characters or plotline at all, it just really wasn't a topic I was interested in. However, I raced through the third and fourth sections in a couple of hours. As the story shifted away from the stock market and focused on Ida and Mildred as characters, I was much more invested.

This was a book with an extremely long setup, but I think the payoff was just about worth it, even if there wasn't a huge twist in the end as I thought there might be. It was excellent as a work of literature, and I see why it was highly commended, I just personally struggled to get excited by the heavy focus on the economy.

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dolores153's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny informative reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

Revelations about 2/3 of the way through the book completely changed meaning of earlier chapters. Started over again at the beginning, and enjoyed recognizing the interplay of the various parts. Unexpectedly delightful analogy with musical progressions.

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appled303's review against another edition

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challenging emotional mysterious reflective sad 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? It's complicated

5.0

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leahthebooklover's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? No

4.0

"Trust" asked me to consider what truth is, and who do I trust to tell me the truth, since truth is subjective based on the bias of the source. The book was nothing like the Gatsby-esque story I was expecting. I'm having a hard time even deciding how to rate this book. On the one hand, it addresses some very important themes; power, wealth, politics, monetization, truth, image, feminism, identity, responsibility and more. On the other hand, the structure of the book was unusual and unsettling. It didn't really make sense until the very end. It's the story of an embarrassingly wealthy financier in the early 20th century. He is well known for his "golden touch" when it comes to successfully investmenting in the stock market, but he and his wife live a very enigmatic and somewhat reclusive life. We hear about them in four separate stories, told from four different perspectives with distinctly different styles. Part one is a novel within the novel, "historical fiction", if you will. The names of the characters are changed, but the story contains enough details that the "real life" inspirations are easily identifiable, and there are enough insinuations and embellishments in the manuscript that the subject of the book, Andrew Bevel, sets out to "right the record". Part two is his rough draft autobiography, and was the least enjoyable and most confusing section of the book. Part three is a memoir by Ida Partenza (also known as Ida Prentice - a word play on apprentice). She is remembering her time as Andrew Bevel's personal secretary. Her sole responsibility is to write his biography, while he oversees, edits, and approves of everything she writes in order to shape the story to his liking. The longer Ida works with him, the more she comes to realize his version of the truth isn't any more real than the story he's trying to to refute (the part one "novel"). Part three was my favorite section of the book, but part four is where all of the dangling threads of the first three sections come together. It's the personal diary of Mildred Bevel - Andrew's wife. In her account, secrets are revealed and questions are answered. Diaz's complex and unusual style was an effective way to tell this story, but I can imagine readers abandoning the book in part two and missing out on the full experience, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

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m_a_j's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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lizzym126's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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