Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Sleepwalking by Meg Wolitzer

12 reviews

san_dra's review

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dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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savvylit's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A

2.0

The good: relatively well written and empathetic towards very specific new adult feelings of anxiety and depression.

The bad: I found the book boring and naive. Mostly because I am certainly not the target audience at all. To begin, the initial trio of girls obsessed with death were full of intrigue. But Claire left the other "death girls" behind so quickly. Additionally, I didn't realize quite how young this entire book would feel. Wolitzer was twenty-one when she published Sleepwalking and it shows. I think I might have enjoyed this when I was somewhere around that same age. At 32, though, Sleepwalking just seemed like a shallow story striving too hard for meaning. I've read much better debuts by young authors.

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vera_nikolajevna's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5


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fatsss's review

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challenging dark sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

You know when you’re sad or you want to cry so you listen to sad music? This book is the sad music. Good book. 

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hunkydory's review against another edition

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emotional sad medium-paced
  • 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? Yes

3.25


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noemieblue's review against another edition

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

3.25

My expectations were high due to everything I had heard about it over the years, so definitely wasn't expecting this. I thought it'd focus more on the college aspect, and the other death girls. I still really enjoyed Claire's unique relationship with Lucy (and her family). It's a very specific situation that somehow hit close to home, and for that I connected with it. 

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chiya's review against another edition

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

4.0

** character development isn't strong. there was a change to the characters but its not drastic. in my opinion there wasnt much of difference with them from when the story started, but there was a change and i feel like that counts for something. 

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thisissofiam's review

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dark mysterious slow-paced
  • 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? It's complicated

3.0

this is so NOT what i was expecting from this. i was kinda disappointed but i still thought the book was well written and made me think about my life and how i affect those around me <3 

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_alittleliterary_'s review

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dark reflective slow-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

3.25


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definebookish's review against another edition

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hopeful reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I thought Sleepwalking might be my second favourite kind of story, twisted and heavy with darkness. Actually it’s the one I love even more; a story of an unspoken need or longing fulfilled.

This is Meg Wolitzer’s debut, written while she was an undergraduate and published in 1982. Initially it reminded me of that meme that goes around about the eighties being closer to the sixties than they are to now – those early chapters feel noticeably more Bell Jar than, for example, My Year of R&R.

Eighteen-year-old Claire Danziger is a ‘death girl’, one of a trio who haunt the halls of their university campus dressed in black and immersed in the verses of their respective favourite female poet. Laura’s obsession is Anne Sexton, Naomi’s Sylvia Plath, and Claire’s the fictional Lucy Ascher, who – like Sexton and Plath – died by suicide some years earlier. But Claire is carrying another loss, and a relationship with an older student prompts her to take her obsession with Lucy to a new level.

This wasn’t what I expected at all, really. Or perhaps the first fifty pages were – I could sense teen me reading the opening chapters over my shoulder, drenched in patchouli and approving *very* much. But it’s a surprisingly mature book for an undergrad, contemplative and wise and understated.

I had anticipated more ‘death girl’ action, when in fact Naomi and Laura are secondary characters; this is very much Claire’s story. I didn’t anticipate it being so moving, or so hopeful. It is dark at times, but in a dreamy way rather than a morbid one. I felt lulled and a little spellbound by it.

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