Reviews tagging 'Death'

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

27 reviews

lydia_harrisx's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious slow-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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Racism, War, and Death

Moderate: Sexism, Gun violence, and Slavery

beautifulminutiae's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Violence, and Death

Moderate: Racism, Misogyny, and Slavery

coballe's review against another edition

adventurous slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood

Minor: Death, Racism, Murder, War, and Dementia

cyberhavok's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious slow-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: War, Death, and Slavery

Moderate: Mental illness

jessthanthree's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious slow-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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Gore, Sexism, War, and Body horror

Moderate: Murder, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Death, Violence, Gun violence, and Forced institutionalization

Minor: Transphobia, Slavery, and Death of parent

lycheeteareads's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious slow-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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Death, and War

Moderate: Mental illness, Gun violence, and Slavery

Minor: Sexism

blacksphinx's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

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

4.5

If you are someone who is any level of dedicated to the occult arts, particularly those you learn extensively out of books like ancient astrology, grimoire magic, traditional witchcraft, or a reconstructionist polytheism, this book is for us. The society of magicians in York is so true to many groups and individuals I have met that I felt compelled to read the first page and a half out loud to the occultists and close friends of occultists I met up with while reading this book, who could not stop smiling and shaking their head at it. If you feel the same way about those opening paragraphs, it is worth your time to continue on with the entire tome. 

What ultimately robbed it from being 5 Stars in my eyes is that it was too long! This book is fantastic but it didn't need to be over 800 pages. It is maddening how many times characters not sharing information with each other prevents the right action from occurring until hundreds of pages later. There was a point where I thought I was never going to finish this damn thing and I felt about it akin to a textbook I was reading for class. And then we finally get a large jolt of plot progression in the last ~150 so pages that was so satisfying it kept me from from going down to a flat 4 Stars. 

Sidenote: this book contains period-typical racism, in both remarks made about Jewish people and one of our main PoV characters being a Black man in London in the early 1800's.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Death, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Mental illness, Grief, Classism, Murder, Animal death, Kidnapping, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gun violence, Racism, and War

Moderate: Slavery, Alcohol, and Sexism

Minor: Antisemitism, Transphobia, and Fatphobia

kanadrallegria's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious slow-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

3.75

Was quite slow at the beginning, but did get going after a while. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, Grief, and Mental illness

Moderate: War and Slavery

Minor: Forced institutionalization and Mental illness

tallnecked_pancakeface's review against another edition

challenging dark funny mysterious 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Classism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Slavery

Minor: Mental illness

footnotes

clara_mai's review against another edition

3.5

- impressively intricate world building (the history of magic in England)
- historical aspect well executed with lots of fun references (the Shelleys appear!)
- rich, gothic atmosphere
- lush descriptions of the faerie world and the magic
- writing style embodies historical period
- beautiful illustrations accompany the story

- narrative style keeps the characters at a distance
- little emotional impact
- would have liked to see critique of/commentary on British Imperialism as magic was constantly used in favour of the government
- although I think this needed to be a long book, it could have been a *little* shorter
- ending not really satisfying, feels like it doesn't do the rest of the story justice

now very interested in reading Piranesi, a significantly shorter and much more recent work by Susanna Clarke that I've had my eye on for a while 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Racism, Animal death, and Murder

Moderate: Gun violence, War, and Sexism