ktrain3900'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? Yes
4.0
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Miscarriage, Police brutality, Rape, Sexual content, Infidelity, Alcohol, Forced institutionalization, and Suicide
arieloley's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Graphic: War, Violence, Colonisation, Classism, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Rape, Racism, Death, Mental illness, Suicide, Xenophobia, Toxic relationship, Physical abuse, Outing, Lesbophobia, Homophobia, and Alcoholism
Moderate: Miscarriage, Infertility, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, and Antisemitism
laney_butt's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Graphic: Suicide
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Vomit, and War
pkledgrape's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Graphic: Homophobia, Grief, Lesbophobia, Medical content, Forced institutionalization, Suicide, Police brutality, Suicidal thoughts, Infidelity, and Medical trauma
Moderate: Death, Domestic abuse, Rape, and Sexual violence
Minor: Adult/minor relationship
umbellule's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Graphic: Rape
Moderate: Alcoholism, Homophobia, Sexual assault, Police brutality, Medical trauma, Torture, Suicide, Lesbophobia, Domestic abuse, Death of parent, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, and Adult/minor relationship
Minor: Animal death and Transphobia
there are mentions of sea lions being hunted and killed, but this happens 'offscreen' and is not graphically described. one of the main characters is a butcher, and their work is described, but no animals are killed on the page. there are a couple of brief mentions of 'crossdressers', who are described as men who like to dress as women; they are described without any malice, but are gendered only with he/him, which may sound transphobic depending on one's own cultural context. there are two mentions of sexual encounters involving underage people, which the now-grown people still describe as consensual. this is, however, not glamorised or fetishised. there is a flashback scene involving forced institutionalisation and torture. there are multiple flashbacks involving rape, including underaged rape and marital rape, though these are not graphic.Spoiler
there is a graphic suicide scene, by falling, from the point of view of the one dying.franklola's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Graphic: Homophobia, Forced institutionalization, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual violence, Suicide, Adult/minor relationship, Grief, Infidelity, Sexual assault, War, Death, Misogyny, Police brutality, and Rape
linguaphile412's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Graphic: Sexual content and Suicide
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Grief, Medical content, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Homophobia, Emotional abuse, Sexism, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Infidelity, Religious bigotry, Lesbophobia, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Rape, Sexual harassment, and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Torture, Miscarriage, and Antisemitism
nannahnannah's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Representation:
- almost every character is Uruguayan
-one of the five MCs (Romina) is biracial and Jewish
- every MC is sapphic; all but one (La Venus, who’s bisexual) is gay
Carolina De Robertis’s writing is consistently beautiful, even if it’s also exhaustingly long-winded. The story’s focus is less on its plot (which is light and slow) and more on the five central characters themselves, their interactions with each other, and their interactions with the two major settings: their city and Cabo Polonio, the beach where they first vacation to and become a tight found family.
I’m not much bothered by the sluggish pacing or the wordy writing--especially when it’s this lovely--but the dialogue does become a little stilted. But then again, I think the book suffers the most when it vanishes altogether. I was so surprised at the amount of backstory in the second half, and that’s saying something, because I was also surprised at the amount of backstory present in the the first. But the first act is told through each main characters’ alternating PoVs in what I'd describe as being fairly “immediate” when compared to the better half of the second act, which consists almost entirely of summaries.
There is also character “development” that happens completely off page; for example, Paz, the youngest of the main five, ages the most dramatically in the time skip from the first and second act because she's sixteen at the beginning of the book--and she becomes almost unrecognizable. This change isn’t summarized, either. She’s just changed. But maybe this is something that’s common in fiction that spans multiple generations, and because that’s not a genre I read very often, it's strange to me.
Okay, but I have to give compliments where compliments are due: trauma is handled extremely well. The majority of these characters have their own trauma, each unique, each painful, each handled superbly. Even when I kind of wish it wasn’t, like with Paz, who was groomed by an adult when she was about thirteen years old. On one hand, I’m amazed at how realistic and unbiased the author handled this situation, because Paz herself doesn’t see what happened to her as abusive. She sees it rather as a kind of lesbian awakening, largely due to the way she was groomed, while her (adult) friends are horrified by what happened to her. Though I wish Paz’s opinion changed when she got older (because if not, that could be how those situations happen again, but with Paz in the opposite role), I admire the way the risk taken here.
I also appreciate how the author made it so the novel never really picks sides or has biases when it comes to fights between the main characters--especially when these fights are about things like cheating, things that usually do pick one side. It never becomes a morality lesson or a character blatantly preaching to another. So I appreciate that, even though personally I have such strong feelings about it that it was difficult to sit through the fights without wanting the book to take sides.
There were a few other things that bothered me, like some over-the-top descriptions of certain characters that go on and on, the biphobia, and the almost fetishistic descriptions of the indigenous Guaraní character, but overall this was a beautiful and heartbreaking book I'm glad to have read.
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, Rape, Suicide, Homophobia, and Torture
also: cheating, cissexism, biphobia, nazism, electroshock "therapy", child grooming, and CSAjeanspantalones's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Sexual violence, Rape, and Forced institutionalization
Moderate: Homophobia, Adult/minor relationship, Infidelity, and Abandonment
Minor: Suicide, Confinement, Antisemitism, Torture, and Grief
The spoilers sound bad, but it is more a commentary on the historical context and setting of the book than the book itself. The author treats most of these scenes with respect, even if they are uncomfortable, nothing is graphic just for the sake of it.nibs's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I want to cherish this book.
Graphic: Suicide
Moderate: Torture, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Religious bigotry, Police brutality, Lesbophobia, Homophobia, Grief, Forced institutionalization, Alcohol, and Adult/minor relationship