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katharina90's review against another edition
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
2.5
I enjoyed this historical backdrop and was excited by the premise of a fictional companion dictionary of "lost words" aka entries rejected mostly for sexist and classist reasons.
What fell felt for me was the plot and characters. Everyone was fairly one-dimensional and relationships superficial. The plot was slow moving for the most part, but oddly rushed at times that feel crucial.
Ultimately I think what bothered me the most was that the many tragic developments towards the end didn't serve a purpose that was satisfying to me, so the heartbreak felt pointless or at least unnecessary.
Moderate: Death, Mental illness, Sexism, Death of parent, War, and Classism
Minor: Child abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual content, and Colonisation
knitswhilereading's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
3.5
Moderate: Sexism, Abortion, and War
Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Pregnancy, and Colonisation
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
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
hematthews's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, and War
Moderate: Cursing, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Blood, and Abortion
Minor: Car accident
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
zombiezami's review against another edition
4.75
Graphic: Cursing, Misogyny, Sexism, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Confinement, Death, Gore, Sexual content, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and War
Minor: Child death, Infertility, Mental illness, Rape, Slavery, Abortion, and Colonisation
maijaka's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
One quote that stuck with me:
“Was I better? Before Shropshire I’d felt broken, as though I would fall should the scaffold of my work be removed. I didn’t feel that now, but there was a fine crack through the middle of me, and I suspected it might never mend. I remembered Lizzie apologizing to Mrs. Lloyd the first time she stayed to chat, for the chip in the cup.
‘A chip doesn’t stop it from holding tea,’ Mrs. Lloyd had said.”
Graphic: War
Moderate: Sexual content, Sexual violence, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Abandonment
mylittlehappynook's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Graphic: Cursing
Moderate: Sexual content