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anjh's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
Graphic: Death, Hate crime, Misogyny, Sexism, Slavery, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Car accident
rinku's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Graphic: Pregnancy
Moderate: Misogyny, Sexual content, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Minor: Bullying, Infertility, and Car accident
acasiamae's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Graphic: Death and Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Misogyny, Violence, Grief, and War
Minor: Child abuse, Abortion, Death of parent, War, and Injury/Injury detail
abigaelf's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.75
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Misogyny, Sexism, Grief, Medical trauma, Pregnancy, and War
Moderate: Sexual content, Death of parent, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
Minor: Car accident, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail
mels_reading_log's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
I had never really given much thought to how the dictionary was written and the proof that was needed for a word to be included. This book is fictional but tells the real process of writing the Oxford English Dictionary, the amount of people involved and how many years it took to complete. The main character of Esme was fictional but she grows up with her father working on the words of the dictionary and sees how certain words are left out. Words that are used by people who are not well educated white men. So she starts to collect other words, those of the poor, uneducated and disenfranchised.
Graphic: Death, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Minor: Body horror, Racism, Slavery, and Abortion
elaeagnifolium's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Graphic: Misogyny, Sexism, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and War
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail
writingbugtop's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Death, Mental illness, Misogyny, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, War, and Injury/Injury detail
beautifulpaxielreads's review against another edition
- 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? It's complicated
4.0
As the title suggests, this is a book about words, more specifically those words that are not considered important enough to be compiled into the first-ever edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Since the task of compiling the OED is largely left to older white men, inevitably their ingrained biases ensure that the dictionary is skewed towards a male view of the world, and this is writ large when it comes to the male attitude to women.
In the year 1901, one of the OED's loyal fans discovered that the word "bondmaid" was missing from the dictionary. It is from this factual nugget that Pip Williams has constructed the fictional character and heroine of the novel, Esme Nicoll. The story of the novel is the story of Esme's life, covering late Victorian-era Great Britain to the First World War.
The novel was written almost entirely (
In terms of other characters, I most liked Harry, Esme's widowed father, Edith "Ditte" Thompson, Esme's mentor and mother figure, and Lizzie, a serving maid at Murray household where Esme spends her childhood and whom Esme eventually
I also had some issues with the novel's structure and pacing, which seemed uneven to me. Even though the beginning of each chapter stated the year and the month in which it was set, the time jumps could be hours, days, weeks, or even months at a time. These jumps were not always consistent, leaving me confused as to just how much time had passed between the beginning and end of a chapter. It kind of felt a bit lumpy.
Ultimately, it was the themes of this novel that I most strongly resonated with - the way certain words were defined to degrade not only by gender but by social status, the way words could come to mean more than one thing, the development of slang and curse words, and most poignantly, the inadequacy of words to describe the human experience.
This is a novel that, to me, asks two fundamental questions: Whose words matter? And almost more importantly, who gets to decide?
A moving, thought-provoking read.
Graphic: Death, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexism, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Pregnancy, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Blood, and Colonisation
Minor: Fatphobia, Racism, Slavery, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment
This novel takes place during the rise of the first wave of feminism in the early 20th century. It includes a discussion and descriptions oforlagal's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
Graphic: Ableism, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Mental illness, Sexual content, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
flickwitch's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Moderate: Grief, War, and Injury/Injury detail
I enjoyed this, it was a good, interesting story that gave me a lot to think about.