Reviews tagging 'Death'

City of the Beasts by Isabel Allende

6 reviews

mayaspasta's review against another edition

adventurous emotional informative inspiring mysterious reflective fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Cancer, Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Murder, and Cultural appropriation

julells's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective fast-paced

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

4.5

Ein sehr spannendes Buch mit tollen Charakteren und einem einzigartigen Plot

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Murder, and Classism

Moderate: Cancer, Drug use, Misogyny, Sexism, Excrement, Kidnapping, and Alcohol

a_random_fangirl's review against another edition

adventurous emotional informative inspiring mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cancer, Death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Blood, Murder, Colonisation, and Pandemic/Epidemic

eni_iilorak's review

adventurous inspiring mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Racism, Violence, and Colonisation

Moderate: Medical content

Minor: Drug use and Alcohol

mariebrunelm's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious fast-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? Yes

2.5

This is one of those books that touches on really important topics but in a way that I didn't really enjoy. City of the Beasts celebrates the Amazon forest and keeps raising alarm on how it's treated and how it needs to be saved, which is sadly still relevant nearly 20 years after it was published. To do so, the author writes a YA / middle-grade adventure novel about a 15-year-old Californian boy with an excentric grand-mother who turns out to be some sort of Chosen One and to save the local inhabitants. This is an instance of the White Savior trope, in which a white foreigner saves grateful locals, to the point that he's initiated into their secrets. It didn't sit right with me.
As far as the writing style is concerned, the narration was so detached (too much in the "tell", not enough in the "show") that I had no empathy for the characters and didn't really buy into what I was reading. There was also the fact that in France, this book is published as an adult book when to me, it felt very middle-grade. There were lots of repetitions, and the characters were very cliché.
I really wanted to love this book, so I was all the more frustrated. This is probably because ever since I noticed City of the Beasts years and years ago, I built an image of it in my head that I was bound to miss when reading the actual book.  I can't help but think that in the twenty years since this book was published, middle-grade has evolved and isn't written in the same way. The middle-grade books I've read recently were witty and fun when this one sounded rather preachy and a little condenscending towards the inhabitants of the Amazon forest.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Cultural appropriation, and Colonisation

mikki_9's review

adventurous emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

2.0

Lots of the white saviour theme along with misogyny, but the adventure is exciting.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Excrement, Kidnapping, and Colonisation

Moderate: Animal death, Cancer, Death, Drug use, Terminal illness, Violence, Murder, and Alcohol

Minor: Alcoholism and Blood