Reviews tagging 'Gore'

A Long Petal of the Sea, by Isabel Allende

3 reviews

solacelight's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Unfortunately, Allende fails to evoke true emotion beyond the emotion of a fact, in either the reader or the characters. This is a story of selfish people with in a time of great upheaval, personally and otherwise. Even the love Allende so deeply relies on is not truly explored. They don't feel like real people. However, it is undoubtedly incredibly well-researched. Read this for the history with an extra hit of intrigue, not for the story itself. The story is not about the characters, rather the characters are vehicles of history.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, Gore, Infidelity, and War

Moderate: Cancer, Religious bigotry, Suicidal thoughts, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Terminal illness, and Antisemitism

Minor: Colonisation, Incest, Suicide, Misogyny, and Toxic relationship

rotatinglibrary's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I found the narrative fairly dry. The entire narrative felt like a set up for a different story. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Gore, Violence, and Medical content

Moderate: Racial slurs

Minor: Trafficking

Political context of setting may be triggering

sarah984's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

The history that this book was based on was fascinating, but I think I would have preferred to read a straight-up history book to this work of historical fiction. The characters are all very vaguely drawn and have extremely predictable stories. The reader is always told how the characters feel instead of it being demonstrated in the text, and somehow despite all of the characters’ hardships everything seems to always work out neatly for them so the stakes felt weirdly low.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Body shaming, Child death, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Excrement, Fatphobia, Grief, Gore, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Medical content, and Violence

Moderate: Ableism, Cancer, Dementia, Gun violence, Homophobia, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Police brutality, Rape, Racism, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, Torture, and Xenophobia