Reviews tagging 'Abandonment'

Breakfast at Tiffany's A short novel and three stories by Truman Capote by Truman Capote

6 reviews

c_dmckinney's review against another edition

Go to review page

lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

Technically the book is well written and Michael C Hall's narration is perfect for the nameless narrator. I just hated the story the whole way through.

Holly Golightly is something like a proto-Manic-Pixie-Dream-Girl. She's flighty and traumatized and profoundly unwell and all the men in her life are obsessed with her and using her for various purposes all their own. I have a lot of pity and empathy for her and a lot of frustration and what is probably disdain for most of the men in her life. 

I definitely understand that a major issue I have with this is that I am a woman in the year 2024 with a history of trauma  of my own and a background in mental healthcare education and I am unable to fully remove my context from this story from 1958.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

mysimas's review against another edition

Go to review page

  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

1.5

How are people tagging this as light-hearted is beyond me, this is a story of a sad little girl - runaway child bride who'd slept with people, or should I say had been sexually taken advantage of, even before she married at 14 - who's all alone in the world and goes through all kinds of bad things in the present-time plotline of the book, including
miscarriage, numerous unwanted sexual advances, abandonment, the death of her beloved brother, a (probably accidental) entanglement with mafia and her subsequent interrogation, and more
... Light-hearted, where??

Also, for the most part, it was just boring. Yet another bleh manic pixie dream girl fantasy. I did perk up at the
mafia twist
, but by then the story was over. :(

Last but not least, heads up for a lot of racism and for some reason hate against lesbians (???).
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

sfx_naike's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional reflective sad medium-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

3.5

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

danah_kmt's review against another edition

Go to review page

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

3.5

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

burnyayhayley's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging funny mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

3.0

I don't really know what I expected, though I was unfortunately not surprised by the problematic, outdated language.
This story is so odd, but I have to admit that the character of Holly is fascinating— in the way that compulsive liars who are friends with everyone are often fascinating.
I found the reveals to be quite effective, I was taken aback several times, which I should credit to the pace and tone of the book being so light and airy that when something surprising happens it falls like a ton of bricks. There is clearly skill in the writing, but for the first third of the book at least, I really was questioning why this was a beloved classic.
And why is it that SO MANY AUTHORS write from the perspective of a useless male narrator who doesn't even get a story that has any closure? What is the attraction to that perspective?
Anyway, it was okay, and I do like it when classics are weirder than I expect.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

sillyduckie's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

I gave this a 4 when I read it in 2013 but I must’ve been high, or else I read a very different edition. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings