Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

16 reviews

emilyandthewhippet's review against another edition

slow-paced

4.0

It's a beautiful book, largely about the author's grief around loosing her father, closely followed by a retelling of the biography of a horrible, flawed man and his hawk from the past. The passages about her hawk are so real you feel she's preening her feathers in front of you but these are third to the aforementioned.

Perhaps I'd built this book up too much in my head. After all, it's on a subject I find so interesting and I've had it on my shelf a good four years before it was read. It was slow and I found myself disappointed that the book neatly finished, only to start yet ANOTHER chapter. I wouldn't read it again.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Homophobia, Mental illness, Racism, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Depression, antidepressants, hunting, hunting of animals, guns, misogyny

lizziaha's review against another edition

4.75

This book is like a gut punch—grief is a funny little thing. It works in ways that are hard to predict or identify. And this book puts that in the most beautiful phrasing possible. The hawking stuff kinda grossed me out but the way that Macdonald interwove t.h. white’s experiences was really compelling. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Child abuse, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Xenophobia

cyluho's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Grief, and Death of parent

bluejay21's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief and Death of parent

Moderate: Animal cruelty and Animal death

wishbea's review against another edition

dark emotional sad slow-paced

2.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Grief, and Death of parent

drone232's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

This is about a man and woman trying to find themselves in two different time periods. It is about the author, Helen, whose father just died, and she is trying to distract herself from the pain by buying a hawk to train. She is already experienced in raising birds, but managing a hawk proves quite challenging, especially for someone emotionally insecure like her. She is, at the same time, entranced by the life story of author T.H. White a generation past who also tried to raise a hawk, and had no idea what he was doing. He wanted to find manhood and wildness in the act, but only proves how naive he is. This is a deep and compelling book about human nature with occasional tidbits about birds. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death

Moderate: Homophobia

teaandpetrichor's review against another edition

Stopped purely because I can't do hunting stuff. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death

Moderate: Animal cruelty

hfleur's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and War

rcsreads's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

3.5

It's part memoir, part about hawks and part a biography of T.H. White. The writing is beautifu,  and I liked how it dealt with grief. On the other hand, Hawking seems incredibly cruel to the animals and T.H. White sounds like a horrible person!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Blood, and Death of parent

Minor: Injury/Injury detail

mandkips's review

challenging emotional reflective sad

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Death, and Mental illness

Minor: Blood