Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

6 reviews

shaleen64's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad 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? No

3.5

The first two thirds of the book are hard to read, simply due to the pace being so slow. Having said that , the picture building is required for context.

The final third is emotional and engaging. It makes you question what it means to be human and how decisions/factors out of our control can dictate our lives.

Whilst the book is worth the read, it’s a book that seems better suited to analysis in oppose to reading for enjoyment.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Medical content, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Bullying, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Sexual content, Pregnancy, and Classism

Minor: Cancer and Homophobia

chireadsandchill's review against another edition

challenging emotional mysterious 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? No

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Infertility, Sexual content, Grief, and Pregnancy

eva_vva's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Infertility, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Bullying, Child abuse, Toxic relationship, and Gaslighting

Minor: Cancer, Cursing, Infidelity, Blood, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

saskiahill's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Medical content, and Grief

Minor: Sexual content and Pregnancy

unhingedkorean's review against another edition

challenging emotional sad slow-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? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death and Medical content

Minor: Infertility, Sexual content, and Pregnancy

nepheloma's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-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

3.75

This is a very interesting book that I personally interpreted as an allegory for the course of life.  The main question it focuses on is: why do we do anything if there's no hope, or at least nothing more than this life, in the end? It's basically a reflection on the absurdity that characterizes our existence through the experiences of three very, very human characters. They are all very flawed, sometimes even to an aggravating extent, but I found it kind of comforting how openly their flaws were explored and how they kept being connected, not despite these flaws, but even alongside them.

What I personally realized through this book was that we keep on living life because that's the core of our humanity: to create and to exist, no matter how absurd our existence might really be. We're not different from the students at all -our existence is a path straight towards death, just like theirs. But we keep carrying on, because what matters is that we live until we die.

I think that the only thing that I didn't enjoy very much was the writing style of this book. I do understand that it is designed to reflect that the story is told orally, but I found it repetitive. Sometimes, there was foreshadowing that was too obvious or even repeatedly mentioned, which made me feel that the set ups the writer wanted to create were a little not too strongly built. At times, I also found the narration somewhat emotionless, especially in the beginning of the book, but even though this bogged me, I have to admit that it did contribute to the general morose, yet hopeful, atmosphere that the book had.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Terminal illness, and Medical content

Minor: Cancer, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Drug use, Infertility, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, and Pregnancy