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lateromantic's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Drug use, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Alcohol, Colonisation, and Classism
None of these tags are as graphic as they sound - the book explores the difficult feelings surrounding death rather than being a graphic depiction of such events.polkapunkband'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
4.75
Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Hate crime, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Islamophobia, Medical content, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic
inquisitivevic'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
2.75
Graphic: Death, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Abandonment
Moderate: Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, and Alcohol
Minor: Misogyny, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, and Murder
maeverose's review against another edition
TL;DR: none of it grabbed my attention, the writing style irritated me, and it’s very depressing. Which is the point but if I’m not getting anything from it why would I put myself through that?
I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this. On one hand I can see why people would like it, but it’s definitely not something that works for everyone and unfortunately it didn’t work for me.
To start, this book should come with about every content warning you can think of. It’s very dark. If you have a fear of death or struggle with suicidal thoughts I’d skip it, or at least go in prepared. I don’t have a fear of death and this book triggered my anxiety. There are lots of brutal and sad depictions of deaths, a lot of them thrown at you back to back. It’s a lot. Please check content warnings.
At one point there is a mention of jk rowling and harry potter. It wasn’t exactly positive or negative, but there is also a lot of language on motherhood that’s very tied to the ability to biologically reproduce and I saw zero acknowledgment of trans or non binary people, which for me is a bit of a red flag. I know nothing about this author so I’m not making any accusations, it just gave me the ick so I wanted to mention it.
I’m not a fan of the writing style, and I feel like this is the type of book where you need to like the writing in order to like the book. It’s purposefully very repetitive and I get annoyed by repetition in books. It’s also very vulgar, which I don’t think is an objective issue I just personally really dislike excessively gross writing and this has a lot of that. There were certain quotes or chapters that I liked, but most of it really didn’t work for me.
Obviously I didn’t finish it but I’m not completely sure what the point of the book is. Other than a brief message about cherishing your life and accepting death as a part of life, which is a great message, but it doesn’t focus much on that. It jumped around a lot, to different deaths both fictional and I think some real ones, then switches to Death’s pov which is almost fable-like, then Wolf’s pov which focuses a lot on his grief and mental health issues. It switches between lyrical prose and poetry. It felt more concerned with aesthetics than an actual story or message, but being as I didn’t finish it I could be wrong about that.
Really disappointed tbh because I thought I’d love this :/ That’s on me.
I’ll end with two quotes that I did like:
Pg 45 “funny that, funny how we feel like we know things about people we never knew, isn’t it? We are puppets, we are children, without thinking we so often mouth the words our lips are taught.”
Graphic: Child death, Cursing, Death, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Sexual content, Suicide, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Racism, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Suicide attempt, and Alcohol
Minor: Fatphobia, Misogyny, Slavery, Car accident, and War
Lots of descriptions of different deaths. Many of which are very violent or disturbing. In certain chapters they list different deaths back to back and it’s very intense.graceesford'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: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Rape, Sexism, Slavery, Violence, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol