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alicewolfe's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Cancer, Child abuse, Death, Infidelity, Racial slurs, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Alcoholism, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Medical content, and Pregnancy
Minor: Death of parent, Alcohol, and War
maresuju's review against another edition
<CW: marital rape>
I understand that this is supposed to be a representation of the monotony/mediocrity that life can be, but I almost feel like this was the opposite. The MC is selfish, refused to make decisions or take any action, and only acts out of his own immediate interests. He essentially forces his wife to marry him despite her making it clear that she has no romantic interest in him, and he rapes her regularly (the author makes it very clear that she’s either asleep or wake up and is tense/unmoving). And then he wonders why his life is shitty, why his wife hates him and keeps her daughter from him.
Truly he is a mediocre (at best) man who feels like he’s entitled to a job, friends, a wife, a family, everything just because he’s there, but puts no effort into any of his relationships. I really tried to stick it out, and made it almost 70% of the way through, but I was just so annoyed and angered by the MC that I couldn’t find a single reason to care about what happens.
Moderate: Ableism, Death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Rape, Sexual assault, and War
Minor: Infidelity, Racism, Sexual content, Death of parent, and Pregnancy
apthompson's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Moderate: Ableism, Alcoholism, Cancer, Death, Infidelity, Mental illness, Sexual content, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and War
lief_'s review against another edition
- 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? It's complicated
4.5
Graphic: Infidelity and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Cancer, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Medical content, and War
Minor: Alcoholism
maithaalfalasi's review against another edition
5.0
Minor: Alcoholism and Sexual content
Academia, slow life, quietmillenniumix'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
4.5
And if you think it sounds like a bore, I assure you it isn’t. Anybody would be bettered by having picked this one and read it.
Moderate: Sexual content
Minor: Alcoholism
cherryredmarlene's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Ableism, Alcoholism, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Alcohol, and War
Moderate: Addiction
sherbertwells'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? No
3.0
“An occasional student who comes upon the name may wonder idly who William Stoner was, but he seldom pursues his curiosity beyond a casual question. Stoner’s colleagues, who held him in no particular esteem when he was alive, speak of him rarely now; to the older ones, his name is a reminder of the end that awaits them all, and to the younger ones it is merely a sound that evokes no sense of the past and no identity with which they can associate themselves and their careers” (1)
“‘Have you gentlemen ever considered the question of the true nature of the University…Stoner, here, I imagine, sees it as a great repository, like a library or a whorehouse, where men come of their free will and select that which will complete them…You see it as a kind of spiritual sulphur-and-molasses that you administer every fall to get the little bastards through another winter…But you’re both wrong,’ [Masters] said. ‘It is an asylum or—what do they call them now?—a rest home, for the infirm, the aged, the discontent, and the otherwise incompetent. Look at the three of us—we are the university” (29)
“It hardly mattered to him that the book was forgotten and that it served no use; and the question of its world at any time was almost trivial. He did not have the illusion that he would find himself there, in that fading print; and yet, he knew, a small part of him that he could not deny was there and would be there” (288)
Graphic: Infidelity
Moderate: Sexual content
Minor: Death, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and War