Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Água Fresca Para As Flores by Valérie Perrin

25 reviews

jo845's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• 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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Abandonment, and Alcohol

Moderate: Infidelity, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Grief, Car accident, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Cancer, Suicide, Vomit, and Pregnancy

Beautiful translation with lots of unexpected twists. Sad but I didn’t cry. Lots of choices made by the characters that I don’t agree with but I couldn’t put it down and finished in two days.

leslie_overbookedsocialworker's review against another edition

emotional 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Grief, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

l_sa's review against another edition

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Misogyny, Sexual violence, and Toxic relationship

aleilvandrea's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Grief, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, and Abandonment

Moderate: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Cancer, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Violence, Medical content, Murder, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

Minor: Homophobia, Self harm, Vomit, Stalking, and Lesbophobia

filipa_maia's review against another edition

emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad slow-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? Yes

4.0

I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did, but it grabbed me from the first page.

More than a story about love and loss, this is a story about emotions, how to deal with them and how to accept the things that life throws our way. This book is a brilliant journey through grief, self discovering and love.

Just to point out a few negatives (and why this wasn't a 'five star' book): I think this book was unnecessarily long (too descriptive about things that don't matter to the plot) and sad (there is not a single happy couple throughout the book, and practically 99% of the stories are about people who betrayed each other).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, and Abandonment

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Cursing, Pregnancy, Alcohol, and Classism

Minor: Animal death and Cancer

weepingstones's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Car accident, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

Minor: Cancer, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, and Terminal illness

helen's review against another edition

4.0

I really liked the main character, Violette. She’s a French woman in her late 40s who works as a cemetery keeper (a job I didn’t know existed), tends her garden, and opens up her house to the grieving. When her past is slowly revealed, I felt a great deal of empathy for her.

The writing is beautiful and evocative - I could clearly imagine the cemetery and Violette’s kitchen.

The book is too long though. The story jumps backwards and forwards in time, and incorporates different side plots that are connected by fate and coincidence to the main one. Every time we left the cemetery to follow the story of another adulterous relationship or the mystery of who was responsible for a tragedy 20 years ago, I just wanted to get back to Violette, her steady strength, and her warm home full of cats and gravediggers.

There are some dark and disturbing themes (see content notes) so I really appreciated the moments of humour

(e.g. when she learns to ride a unicycle in order to pretend to be a ghost and scare away some trespassing teenagers)

and the hopeful ending.

Content notes:

child death, grief, adultery, rape, on page sex, adoption, foster care system, manipulative parents, unhappy and unequal marriage, alcohol abuse, suicidal thoughts

 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Infidelity, and Grief

Minor: Rape, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, and Toxic relationship

vb_marie's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad 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? Yes

2.75

L'histoire de ce livre est prenante et le personnages sont bien décrits. Par contre, le style ne m'a pas plu : beaucoup de jeux de mots et métaphores m'ont semblées forcés.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, and Grief

Moderate: Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, and Abandonment

jblock321's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, and Toxic relationship

mightyfrenchbookworm's review against another edition

emotional hopeful 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? N/A

4.75

Violette est la gardienne du cimetière. On assiste au flashback pour comprendre comment elle s'est rendu à faire ce travail peu commun. On aborde sa relation avec son mari, son enfant, les gens qui viennent se recueillir auprès de leur défunt, etc. On aborde plusieurs sujets sensibles, la mort (bien entendu) et le deuil, l'adultère, les relations toxiques, etc. Quelques personnages sont complexes, et pas tout à fait comme on les a étiquetés. J'ai trouvé l'écriture incroyable même si les dialogues étaient parfois un peu fade. Les chapitres étaient courts ce qui faisait en sorte que j'étais incapable de déposer le livre. J'ai beaucoup aimé les citations en tête de chapitre. Au final, un livre très émouvant, lire ici que j'ai pleuré. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Infidelity, Sexual violence, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Grief, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Alcoholism